Retain
by Mr. Monty
Summary: After years of abuse, vitriol and constant misfortune, the Ed's began to feel as if they would never fit in with the other kids. However, after being dragged into a nightmarish situation, the boys actually manage to succeed for the first time in years. This seemingly minor victory will lead the Ed's down a rather unfamiliar and unsure path: redemption. Spin off of Forfeit.
1. The Blue Light of Mercy

**Hey, bet you did not expect me to actually write something new did you? Well, this story pretty much just reared itself when I read the Ed Edd n Eddy fic called "** _ **Forfeit"**_ **. While I did not hate that story, I actually thought it was alright, I did find myself wondering what would have happened if things went different for the Eds. In other words, this is a "What If?" story spin off…thing. Hope you enjoy!**

 **I changed some of the dialogue and some of the situations, because my story could not exist otherwise!**

 **Update Note: Changed a few more things.**

 _Chapter One:_

 _The Blue Light of Mercy_

" _Sun's up, I hit the floor. Shoes tied, I'm out the door  
Is this a clean shirt? I think it was one yesterday."_

To Edward Marion Dee, the blue mobile home that lay before him might as well have been the entrance to the eleventh circle of Hades. This feeling that coursed through his entire being was a very familiar feeling indeed. The instant drying of his throat, the shaking of his knees and the rapid beating of his heart was the accepted response whenever he was within a fifty mile radius of the Kanker sisters. This familiar fear was pretty much instinct for him and his two friends, having been pursued by the trio of merciless predators for the past several years of their lives. But never had this fear been more pronounced than it was now as he stared at the ragged screen door to the dragon's lair, the lights inside signaling that the three of them had yet to slumber.

He was not here by choice of course. He and his friends had been volunteered, forced would be a more accurate description, by the local jock and bully of the neighborhood named Kevin. The boy had confronted the three of them in the local grocery store and, after clearing up a misunderstanding, he then demanded that they go with him to retrieve his vehicle. Of course, it had been stolen by none other than the desperados of Peach Creek: The Kanker Sisters. Just their luck, as Eddy would say.

"Why, oh why did we not go to the comic store?" He whispered to himself, his voice trembling more than his knees at the moment.

With a small gasp, he covered his mouth and looked around, trying his best to see anything in the suffocating darkness. The only sounds he could hear at the moment were the chirping of crickets, the laughter of the goblins in their cave, and his friends rummaging elsewhere around the trailer. Then, his eyes lay upon the prized horde of the year for the creatures. He could just barely make out the shape of it, but the blur his eyes tried to piece together in the darkness somewhat resembled a motorcycle. He was slightly puzzled by the fact that it was setting out in the open with no security devices, locks or even some rope to keep it tied to the trailer. Then, common sense hit him like a truck.

"Only a fool would dare try to steal something from the Kankers, I suppose." Edd said with an air of self awareness in his voice. With his eyes on the prize, the sock headed boy tiptoed towards the blur and, as he got closer, he was relieved to see that it was indeed the motorcycle he and his friends had walked into the proverbial Hell for. He looked it over for a moment, his eyes finally starting to get used to the darkness and made a grab for the handlebars, his conscience silently berating him for daring to take part in two counts of thievery this day.

"Need any help with that?" He heard a voice ask from the darkness. After wiping some sweat from his forehead, he nodded and looked over his progress.

"Yes please, do you mind?" He asked the air casually. Then his brain began to finally process the voice. The printer of his mind was just now painting the picture for whom the voice belonged to, and when the employees in his brain cells saw the picture it produced, they all screamed. A halfway used cigarette flew passed his head, barely missing his right ear as he felt another set of hands cover his own.

"Not at all, muffin." He slowly rotated his head to the left, seeing a blob of blue meet his face. That blob then turned to meet his gaze, revealing a familiar face whose right eye was covered by her long blue bangs. Just as he was about to scream, she covered his mouth and smirked, motioning for him to be quiet.

"Naughty, naughty Double D. Don't you know stealing is wrong?" She asked, giggling softly as she uncovered his mouth, using her finger to trail down his face. This made Edd's skin crawl and his spine freeze in fear. His throat was tight and begging him to scream, but he kept silent. Both from the fact that his voice would not work at the moment, and the fear of what would happen if he did, being harassed by one Kanker was twenty times better than by all three at once. He just hoped that his two friends would not come across the scene, for they would probably scream for him, thus dragging them into the dragon's drooling maw.

"Bet you did not expect to see me out here, did you pumpkin?" He simply shook his head slowly, his eyes squeezing shut in fear. She giggled again, the sound that might as well had been a tiger's roar. "Truth be told, I was expecting old jock strap to come around and try to take back his rusty hunk of junk." She tickled his chin with her finger "But I'm glad you decided to stop by and see me." She whispered hotly into his ear, causing his hands to start shaking. He finally managed to speak in spite of his fear.

"Please…please just let me take the motorcycle." He pleaded, shaking in his shoes. The blue haired girl looked him over and circled around him, sizing up her prey he imagined. She was now directly in front of him with her hand on her chin in mocking thought.

"Hmm…I don't know. My sisters might get pretty pissed at me." He gulped again, working his brain to the limit in order to think of any way he could bargain with the girl. All of the options that came to mind would make her happy, but did not bode well for him. All he had to do was hope her reasoning won over her desires and, this being Marie Kanker, it seemed about as likely as Ed not hugging a chicken or Eddy not picking up a stray twenty dollar bill.

"How about you do something for me, then I might consider it." She smirked, letting her yellow teeth show.

She walked closer toward him, making him back up until his back was against the outside of the trailer. She rested both of her hands on his shoulders, rubbing his arms slowly and peeling his sleeves upward, revealing his bare, scrawny arms. His breathing turned into frantic gasp as he felt her hands touch his exposed skin and what little remained of his desire to stay silent was eroding quickly. She leaned in and began to kiss on his neck, moving slowly upward toward his trembling lips and, on instinct, the beanie wearing boy felt the tears beginning to roll down his face.

Marie was inches away from the helpless teen's lips and, feeling assertive of her dominance, she began to guide her left hand down his chest. It was time for her plan to commence. Just before she got to his beltline, however, she felt something wet touch her face. She opened her eyes and leaned back to look at his face, seeing an endless flow of tears streaming down his pale face.

"Why the hell are you crying?" Joining her in her confusion, Double D opened his eyes as well and cowered in fear. Showing a sign of weakness around the Kankers was usually a terrible idea, as they would take that as sign of encouragement, rather than a deterrent, then they would laugh as they had their way with their helpless victim. However, for some reason, Marie did not do this. At least, not immediately, she could just be waiting for his guard to go down even lower than it already was. Then he would at her mercy. Just like always.

"I-isn't it obvious?" He managed to choke out, still using his arms to shield his face. "I…I'm scared!" He whimpered as his knees rattled and almost buckled under his weight. The opportunity was right in front of her, she had driven him to his lowest point tonight and he awaited her to pounce and finish him off. Yet, it never came. His eyes managed to pry themselves open and he was both surprised, and scared out of his wits, that she was no longer in front of him.

He began to bolt his head around in every direction, eventually landing to the right and seen Marie standing next to him, leaning against the trailer with her arms crossed as she pulled out another cigarette. He scooted away a bit, causing the Kanker to look at him with apathy and turn her head away, taking a long draw on her cigarette.

"You fucking hate us, don't you Double D?"

That question seemed to come out of the farthest left field in the world. No, the entire galaxy could not have held the left field that came out of. The fact that she even had to ask was baffling to him. Had she been blinded for years and only now was she actually seeing how much torture she put them through? His mind went to the numerous times the Kankers had messed with him and his friends. It went to the times they had forced them into rather embarrassing situations and he could count on one hand how many times they did not forcefully kiss them. _"Of course we hate you! You have done nothing but make our lives even more miserable!"_ is what his mind was begging him to say. However, his heart told him to recall what he had told Ed earlier that day. Something he knew in his heart was true of everyone who hated them. At least, he sincerely hoped it was.

" _Some people have a strange way of showing love."_

The silence remained steadfast as the timid genius tried to form a single syllable, which always proved difficult when in the presence of what might as well had been the devil.

"N-n-n-not necessarily, I j-just think that you all have a…rather forceful way with showing us how much you like us." His words were met with a snicker from Marie, who blew smoke out of her mouth and nose.

"Spare me the sympathetic shit Double D; I am a big girl now." She looked down at the bike and back to the sock headed boy, who recoiled slightly at her glance. "If you don't tell me the truth, I'll beat it out of you."

"B-but it is the t-truth! I swear!" He said a bit louder, causing him to cover his mouth in terror. She sighed, took another long draw from her cigarette and put it out, walking toward the set of steps that led into the lair of the beast.

"Whatever. Just take the fucking thing. I'll tell them I got bored and scrapped it already." Edd was stunned by these words and, for some reason, reached his arms out to keep her from leaving. After being berated by his mind, his heart was worried that she might get into trouble with her siblings. He wanted to say something else, but he could only squeak out two words as she was about to open the door.

"Thank you." Marie paused for a moment, looked at him and seen the gratitude in his eyes. She rolled her own eyes and waved him off.

"Just get out of here before I change my mind." She opened the door and went inside, leaving the Ed boy alone in the darkness, with only the crickets giving the area around him volume.

He collapsed onto his knees, taking more than a few deep breathes as his life finally stopped flashing before his eyes. He looked up at the light filled window, still hearing the three sisters laughing and thumping around. His mind was still doing its best to comprehend what had happened. A Kanker, Marie Kanker, had shown him mercy. After four years of torture and humiliation, he had been shown mercy from one of his most notorious tormenters. It seemed like…

"Oh right, the bike!" He got up on shaky knees and walked toward the vehicle, grabbing hold of the handlebars and did his best to guide it along without making any noise. Just as he passed the side of the trailer, Eddy and Ed went to meet him, looking at him in surprise.

"Whoa, you found it!" Ed said, flashing his familiar toothy grin as he looked over the motorcycle with glee. "Can I ride it?" Eddy shushed him.

"As much as I would love to see you crash this piece of shit, we need to get it back to shovel chin so he can get off our backs." Double D nodded and let Ed help him lead the delinquent vehicle through the very dark trailer park, his brain still trying to wrap around what the heck just happened. He simply smiled as his head whirled around to look back at the trailer, a gesture that was almost physically painful to perform.

* * *

The entrance to the forest finally came into view after a painful few minutes of silent walking. Sneaking into enemy lines is hard enough, but sneaking back out was downright stressful and boring in comparison, at least to Eddy, who was on the verge of a heart attack each time he heard leaves rustle. Standing at said entrance was a familiar bully, he wore a grey hoodie that showed off his muscles, a pair of black shorts and upon his head was a red hat with a black rim. The jock to end all jocks: Kevin. Upon their arrival into his frame of sight, he looked positively stunned.

"What took you dorks so damn long? Did you make out with them first or somethin'?" Eddy rolled his eyes and wanted so badly to punch him in the face.

"Will you just shut up and take your fucking bike back?" he said as Ed and Double D pushed it toward the muscular teen. His eyes brightened as soon as his hands touched the leather seat.

"Oh thank goodness those crazy sluts didn't mess you up, baby." Kevin whispered to the bike, causing Eddy to snicker and stifle a laugh. Kevin looked up and cleared his throat, staring blankly at the Eds, seemingly waiting for something.

"Well, let me hear it." They stared at him with an equal amount of blankness.

"Hear what? Let's get the hell out of here before those crazy bitches find out what we did!" Eddy said, panic seeping into his voice. Kevin looked at him surprised, yet annoyed.

"Aren't you dweebs gonna beg me for cash? Like you dorks always do?" Eddy then looked back at the trailer park in terror. He hated to admit it; no he _really_ hated to admit it, but getting out of here with all of the skin on his body was more important than money at the moment.

"No! Now let's get out of here!" Eddy said, the panic now more pronounced in his scratchy voice. The look on Kevin's face was still one of confusion, but he then put on a mask of anger. A very familiar and comfortable mask indeed.

"You dorks better be lucky I am in a good mood." He turned around and began pushing his bike along the forest trail, making sure to tell the Ed's to cover up his bike tracks as they went. After a long, quiet walk back to the Cul-de-Sac, they arrived across the street from Double D's house and let the fact that they got away scot free from the Kankers wash over their entire being.

"Hey uh…I was actually betting on those crazy hicks catching you guys. Seeing as how you dorks usually screw everything up, but…" Before Eddy could say anything in retort, Kevin scratched the back of his head and looked away from the trio. "So…you know…thanks for the help." What started out as a smirk slowly turned into a face tearing smile as Eddy let every manipulative plan he could think of at the moment take over his past fear of death. He opened his mouth to gloat, but found his pie hole covered by a hand.

"You are very welcome Kevin." Edd said, shooting a small glare to his con artist friend. Without another word, Kevin scratched the back of his head again and began to walk away with his bike in tow, hoping and praying that his folks were not home yet to catch him. He felt his bike jerk a little to the left, causing him to turn to face the source, seeing a smiling Double D holding onto the leather seat.

"May we help you, Kevin?" the athletic boy scoffed and pulled his precious baby away from the scrawny boys grasp.

"Don't push your luck, dorky." Kevin went into the night, rounding the bend that led to his house. The three Ed's stood there in silence, letting the fact that reality seemed to be out on lunch break take over their thoughts. Well, except Ed, he was thinking of more important things, like chickens. Kevin, the jock, the bully, the show off, had just thanked them.

"Well, that sure went well wouldn't you say?" Double D said, laughing a little bit as he looked at his friends. Eddy kept his eyes fixated on the horizon before he suddenly came back to life with roaring laughter, keeling over onto the sidewalk. Ed laughed along, not really needing a reason to.

"I bet that jerk sure regrets all the shit he said about us now huh?" He then protruded his chin out and styled his three hairs like Kevin's hat "So uh… you know, thanks for the help." He said in a mocking tone. He burst out laughing again, leading Ed to take him and Edd into a bear hug, squeezing the life out of them.

"Ed is happy once again!" He said and guffawed. Double D managed to worm his way out of his large friends grip, taking a look at his wristwatch and sighed in relief.

"Oh thank goodness, it is just ten after eight." He turned around to face his two friends "Would you two like to come in for some dinner?" Ed was about to scream yes, but remembered the orange haired demon that would punish him if he came home late again.

"Sorry Double D, Sarah will get mad at me if I am not home by…uhh…what time is it again?" he asked. Double D looked down at his watch again.

"It's 8:10, Ed." Ed's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and he immediately ran off, faster than Edd or Eddy thought he could. This left the middle man and the leader of the trio alone on the sidewalk.

"Would you like to come in Eddy?" Eddy shook his head.

"Sorry Sockhead, but I got a date tonight before I head to bed." Double D raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes.

"Let me guess…" Eddy raised his hands and snickered to himself, laughing at the fact that Edd had caught on in the first place.

"You know it!" Eddy laughed and walked across the street to his house, leaving Double D alone again. With a sigh, he walked toward his front door and reached into his pocket, discovering that his key was gone. His face went pale as he imagined that he had left it at the trailer park. However, before he could start panicking, his memory kicked in and he faintly remembered it being on his dresser.

With a heavy sigh, he went around the back and used the key under the mat, thanking the heavens that he had thought ahead. Heading in, he went around to the front door and saw what usually awaited him when he got home: a bulletin board filled with sticky notes from his parents. Thankfully though, they had only left a few small ones detailing some before dinner task. As he cleaned the kitchen for dinner, his thoughts trailed back to that moment with Marie. What had happened there? Did she grow a conscience out of thin air? Or was this simply the product of him and his friend's obvious reluctance finally getting to them? No matter how hard he thought about it, the situation made no sense to him. Whatever it had been, it had saved him from being…violated…by her.

However, with confusion came the urge to uncover. His mind dug through every inch of his databanks, trying to uncover the ever avoidant answer to his riddle. He dug through every memory he had of her, every piece of dialogue she had spoken and her body language every time he had encountered her. Suffice to say, nothing added up even a little bit. However, while his current equation remained unsolved, another one caught his eye. A problem that rested on a chalkboard covered in past problems and x'd out solutions beneath it. It aroused his attention and, upon examining what had happened earlier, he had an epiphany.

The loud clatter of the mop hitting the floor snapped him out of his trance, a look of realization covering his features as his mind continued to run at a thousand miles an hour.

"By Jove...I've got it!"

He quickly finished up his small chores, set up the table and headed up to his room, only stopping for a short bathroom break. After flicking on his bedroom light, he made his way to his study desk and quickly pulled an empty notebook from his desk drawer.

Taking a permanent marker, he wrote something in big bold letters on the cover. He held up the notebook and read the title to himself multiple times. With the title implanting itself and taking command of all of his brains operations, he flung the cover open, donned a handy dandy pen and slashed words onto the page. It started slow, but after correcting a few early mistakes, he found the words flowing from his pen faster than ever before. His heartbeat increased and sweat fell from his forehead as he applied more pleasure on the page, his mind thinking ten words ahead before his finished even one. After five minutes of continuous writing, he stopped, grasping his somewhat sore wrist and tried to regain his lost breath. With a smile, he held up the notebook and said the title once again as a whisper, his words shaky with excitement.

"My Solutions"


	2. Moral Concerns

**Hello again! Before we begin, I would like to thank you all for reading. It really is good to know that people actually enjoy, or at least look at, the things I write, so thank you once again. Also, I highly recommend that you read, or have knowledge of,** _ **"Forfeit"**_ **so that you have an understanding of why the characters are acting the way they are, and so that you can know the situations they are in.**

 **I hope you enjoy!**

 **Update Note: Added a few more extra details, like last chapter!**

 _ **Chapter Two:**_

 _ **Moral Concerns**_

" _Bad news comes don't you worry even when it lands.  
Good news will work its way to all them plans._ _"_

Why?

Why did she hesitate? She had him right there! He was putty in her hands and she stopped…just because he was crying?! What did she care? She knew that the Ed's hated her and her sisters so why did she care so much?!

More importantly, why did she let him take the freaking motorcycle and lie to save his scrawny butt?

Marie was staring directly into the eyes, well mostly the hair, of her big sister Lee. After letting Edd go, she had waited a little bit before actually telling her sisters what she had done. She never really got a chance to tell when she came in, since Lee and May were too busy having another round of "sisterly love" in the living room. Lee had won again without a scratch, leaving May with only a black eye and a sprained ankle. She laughed at the thought of Lee even touching her whenever they eventually went at it again. But, fighting her sister was not on her mind right now, but it was probably on Lee's mind as she paced around the room.

"Let me get this straight." She started, stopping her pacing to look back at her sister over her shoulder. "You scrapped jock boy's bike without asking me first?" her hands were shaking in anger and, even though Marie could barely see it, her freckled face was turning red real fast. Marie laughed a little, letting the thought that she was most likely going to be beaten by her sister over Double D eat away at her. Being slightly okay with it scared her even more.

"Why the hell do you care? I was tired of having that piece of shit around so I got rid of it for you early." She scoffed and looked over at May, who was trying her best to put on a glare of intimidation as she ate a potato chip. "Besides, it never would have happened if beaver face over there didn't chicken out!" May snorted and sat straight up, taking a huge bite out of the potato chip in her hand.

"Hey! I had guard duty last time, so it's only fair that you had to get your lazy ass up and do it too!" May yelled, spitting bits of mushy chips as she spoke. Lee simply turned her glare to her youngest sister, making her shut up and quietly nimble on another salt packed snack. Lee stared at the ceiling for a second before looking behind her, glancing at their most prized possession that hang above her head. The Kanker ship-n-a bottle, an object that has been handed down by the Kanker family for generations, was the only object in the house that the trio of sisters treasured more than anything. The reasons were unknown to the other kids who lived in the Cul-De-Sac, and the terror inducing trio was not going to let them in on it anytime soon. Lee sighed as she looked at it; the memories of her mother came rushing back like a tidal wave. She turned to face her blue haired sibling, a frown taking over her snarl.

"Alright Marie, I forgive you." She held up her index finger "But, while I try to figure out a new way to get the Ed's, you get your ass in the kitchen and wash this week's dishes." Marie was about to argue, but seen the dangerous look that spread over her older siblings face as she lifted her red bangs. Marie groaned and got up, heading for the kitchen. "Oh yeah, don't use the gloves this time." Just as Marie was about to scream, she was cut off again. "If I come in there and don't see your hands covered in shit, I'll make you lick the toilet bowl again."

May started laughing, that is until she was silenced with a punch to the face from Lee. Marie growled as she turned on the water, looking longingly at the yellow gloves that hang just an arm length away as the sink sputtered and stalled. The water finally began to come out in short burst and, as the faulty plumbing tried its best to do its job, Marie's mind turned to that sock headed dork. She kept asking herself the same question.

" _Why did I let him go?"_ She took a rag and wet it, beginning her long and arduous journey of cleaning the mountain sized pile of dishes. She scrubbed and scrubbed, doing her best to rid the dish of any stains. "Why did I care when he cried?" she whispered to herself, scrubbing the second dish harder. The frustration and confusion was boiling her brain as she tried to make sense of her strange actions. The scrubbing got more intense and the water began splashing onto her cloths as she grit her teeth. She was losing count on what dish she was on now, completely lost to the anger that took hold of her senses.

"Why does he hate me?!" She yelled and punched the counter, effectively ending her tantrum for now. She took deep breaths as she calmed down; looking around at the amount of water she had splashed and the mess she had made of the already filthy kitchen. She heard a knock on the wall and looked to see May standing in the doorway, a look of worry on her face.

"What the hell do you want May?" She asked, groaning as she tried to dry her cloths with a nearby towel. May walked over to her, using another towel to help her. A few seconds of silence took hold of the kitchen; the only sound heard was the distant sound of the TV in the living room.

"Lee told me to check up on you after we started hearing splashing." Marie rolled her eyes and tried to continue her dishes, again reaching for the gloves on instinct.

"Good to know she cares enough not to check herself." She said, idly washing a big tray. While May was not the smartest knife in the crayon box, she knew when something was troubling her sisters and it bothered her whenever they kept to themselves.

"Does it have something to do with Double D?" She guessed, leaning against the counter. Marie stopped scrubbing for a moment and sighed, throwing the rag into the very dirty water.

"Yeah, it does, dipshit." She said, leaning against the wall that lay across from the counter. May was about to ask another question, but Marie cut her short with her own. "May, do you love Ed."

May rolled her eyes at the easy question "Why of course I do, silly." She hugged herself and giggled "He is my big, cuddly teddy bear!" Marie cringed at May's naiveté, although, deep inside, it did make her smile a little. Marie walked next to May, drying her hands before touching her shoulder.

"What if I told you that the Ed's hated us?" For what felt like an hour, May simply stared at her azure haired sister, her eyes wandering around the room as the words bounced around her mind. The thought had never crossed her mind in all of the years they have known the trio of con men. Marie, feeling impatient, groaned and walked back over to her dishes.

"Forget it May, just leave so I can finish these damn dishes." May continued to stare at her sister as she worked, she was about to open her mouth to answer but she could not think of what to say. She turned to leave; stopping only once to look back at her obviously troubled sister, and went back to the living room.

"Why do I care…?" Marie whispered, a foreign feeling took hold of her chest as she thought of his face once again. His utterly terrified face. She threw the rag down again and went out the back door, stopping to grab the pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the counter on her way out.

* * *

"Okay Ed, deep breathes. Deep breathes, like Double D said." Ed followed his words with two large gulps of air and a small set of jumping jacks. He was standing right outside the door to his house and had been standing there for the past five minutes as his nerves begged him to run to Eddy's house or someplace safer. Any place other than the Hell he was about to enter. If it were not for the fact that Sarah locked his basement window every night at 8:00, to keep him and his friends from sneaking in, he would have gotten away scot free. But, sadly, he was not that lucky. He took a few more gasp of air as he imagined fluffy bunnies and cute puppies to try and take his mind off of the scolding he was about to endure. The wrath of his little sister was now something he would have to expect on an hourly basis it seemed, instead of the usual two hours.

Upon pulling every fiber of his being in the same direction, Ed managed to open the door and take a quick glance at the hanging clock that was located on the wall across from the entrance. 8:12 it read, he let out a sigh of relief. At least he was not as late as he had been for the past three days. He got chills imagining what would have happened if he had been an hour late again. With the agility and the reflexes of a space ninja, Ed quietly shut the door and began to tiptoe his way into the living room, making extra sure to check his corners for any sign of his baby sister.

Luckily, he did not see a soul as he made his way past the living room, almost tripping over the couch as he did so. Nearing the kitchen, he caught a whiff of something delicious. No, it smelt more than delicious, it was _gravy_ delicious. Following his nose, the big oaf poked his head around the entrance to the kitchen, seeing his mother manning the stove cooking his favorite dish: a Thanksgiving turkey drenched with gravy. He licked his lips at the sight of her drenching the toasted bird in the thick gravy. His vivid imagination going wild, he imagined the flesh tearing from the bone, the gravy drenching his taste buds, and the downright delicious aftertaste. As his drool formed a puddle on the carpet, he felt something poking his back. He stopped his imagination train and turned around. Then he turned back to the kitchen. Then he turned around again, slowly this time as he wiped his eyes. He almost screamed until his mouth was forcefully shut by none other than Jimmy, his little sisters best friend and partner in crime.

"Hello there Ed," He said innocently, a smile firmly implanted on his face. "Where have you been?" Ed was scared to even move, afraid that as soon as he did, the sickly boy would scream for Sarah and it would be all over for the big lug. Ed, instinctively, got on his hands and knees after taking a quick peek into the kitchen.

"Please Jimmy; don't tell Sarah I came home late again!" He whispered, trying his best not to panic at the mere thought of Sarah coming around the corner behind the now brace-less boy. The boy looked offended by the mere thought of it, but Ed had learned a long time ago what facades he would use when it came to his sister.

"Me? Tell Sarah? Come on Ed, we are men!" He gave Ed a light punch to the shoulder, which made the tall boy jump. "We have to look out for each other, you know?" Ed did not move a muscle or speak, still suspicious. Jimmy looked down at his nails and giggled. "Oh yeah, Sarah has been waiting for that new brush you promised her." Ed's face contorted in horror, with all of the mischief his friends had got into all day, he completely forgot the most important thing that would make sure he lived to see tomorrow: a new hairbrush for his always right baby sister. Jimmy seemed to pick up on his fear.

"I would hate to see the look on her face when she realizes you forgot it." He faked sadness and sighed "Oh well, I guess I better tell her that her big brother, whom she loves dearly and depends on, let her down once again." He turned around and took two steps, just waiting for Ed to say something. In the matter of a few milliseconds, Ed took the bait and grabbed the smaller boy's ankles.

"No Jimmy! Please don't tattle on me!" Jimmy let a smirk appear on his face as he turned to face the older teen, whose eyes were welling up with tears. "Please tell me where I can find another brush this late at night! Please Jimmy, I beg you!" Jimmy put a finger to his chin in thought for a second before snapping his fingers.

"I hear that Nazz just got a new brush. It's supposedly as soft as the kiss of an angel when you brush with it." He said dreamily. He then addressed Ed, who was back on his knees, getting the idea. "I want you to retrieve it for her and, if you do this without getting caught, then I will keep my mouth shut. Agreed?" He stuck his hand out and Ed eagerly took it with both of his.

"Deal!" Ed then scratched his head. "But um…how do I get it from her?" Jimmy shrugged and started toward the kitchen.

"Ask her for it, or steal it." He put emphasis on the word "steal" and took one last look at the Ed boy. "I hear you are pretty good at that last part. What with the little "shopping trips" you and Eddy take." With that, the boy vanished into the kitchen. Ed sat there for a few more seconds, confused about how the boy could possibly know about his trips with Eddy. But, that thought vanished immediately as he got up and sneaked back out of the house, hoping that the curly haired boy would keep his word.

* * *

"No…that's not it either!" Kevin tossed a wrench into the toolbox next him, blindly trying to find the right size to fit his mechanical needs. After aimlessly digging around, he groaned and came out from underneath the motorcycle, taking only a second to find the tool he needed. He took a moment to wipe off the sweat and grease from his face and got back to work, sprucing up his baby. A smile was etched on his face as he worked, happy to be in his garage again and far away from the crazy land known as the Trailer Park. Then, that smile turned into a frown as it brought back memories of his little stakeout with the three dorks and what he had said just an hour prior.

" _So…you know…thanks for the help."_

Upon reviewing this in his mind, he wanted to heave. It had been, what, seven years since he moved to the Cul-De-Sac, and not once had a polite word left his mouth when speaking to them, let alone a thank you. He had no idea why he even thanked them. He was actually hoping that they would get caught, the Kankers would drag them into their creepy trailer to kiss them or whatever, and then Kevin would sneak off with his bike. That was the plan he had spent five seconds coming up with when he re-entered the grocery store to propose his course of action for the dorks.

The muscular jock came out from under his hog and wiped his hands off, making sure to put away his tools properly and give his bike a goodbye polish before he headed to bed. As he went to the garage sink and wet his face a little, the jock looked into the grimy mirror and frowned at the rather handsome teen in the mirror. It wasn't just the fact that he thanked them that rubbed him wrong; it was the fact that he actually had a reason to that bothered him. He would never have admitted it to the dork's faces, but Kevin was freaking terrified of the Kankers, just like anyone else would be. While he could pound the Ed's when they wronged him, the Kanker's were untouchable, both from the fact that they were stronger than he was and the sheer amount of fear they instilled into his being when he just looked at them. Honestly, if he had not brought the troublemakers along with him, he may not have gotten it back.

The notion of him ever needing the Ed's help had been but a fairy tale before, impossible and downright laughable to his younger self. But, unless this was some kind of freaky dream, it had now turned into a reality. Despite this thought, he still scowled as he remembered what had happened a few hours prior to that little charade of an operation. They might have helped him, but they still had left him to rot with Rolf in the hands of the Kankers. He growled and dried his hands off, heading to the door. So those losers saved his bike from a scrapping, big deal. It wasn't like they had saved his life or something. As he opened the door, he turned around to give one last look at his bike. It was his pride and joy and it had been stolen by three crazy chicks who probably would have killed him had he tried to get it back. To make matters even crazier, it had been saved by the three most annoying people he knew. Fail after fail followed their every step, but this time around they had done something right. And that something right was saving something that meant the world to both him and his father. Especially his father.

"This world is bogus sometimes, man." With that statement, he flicked the lights off and shut the door, making his way to the loving arms of his bed.


	3. Bronze Bristles and a Heart of Gold

**Nothing much to say, other than I have not worked this hard on a story since 2011, and that was when I** _ **actually**_ **worked on edFAMOUS. Anyway, thank you all for reading and I would like for you guys to leave me some constructive criticism if you feel like I need it. Believe me, I probably need it.**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Update Note: Fixed a few story related issues.**

 _ **Chapter Three:**_

 _ **Bronze Bristles and a Heart of Gold**_

" _If we leave the past behind,  
We'll fly beyond the sun."_

The cool night air tickled Ed's nose hairs as he stared up at the window to Nazz's room. It hadn't taken him long to arrive at the beautiful girl's home, seeing as how he had activated his turbo thrusters and put the landing gear in as soon as he had left his front steps. Jimmy's words, his devilish words, echoed in the buffoons head over and over, pestering his conscience with how much truth they carried.

" _I guess I better tell her that her big brother, whom she loves dearly and depends on, let her down once again."_

Ed felt a pang of sadness hit his core as this sentence continued to echo in his mind. Was he really that bad of brother? Did Sarah really think of him that way? Were all of the things he did for her meaningless? The tall Ed boy gripped his skull and shook it as hard as he could, standing tall and furrowing his monobrow afterwards. No. Sarah loved him, he just knew it. Even though she had a very strange way of showing it, he knew that deep down she had to have felt something for him. He had done everything for her since she was a child. He had been at her beck and call his whole life, heck, _her_ whole life and he had never once asked for a thank you. The hurtful words that Jimmy spoke seemed to fade as the wise words of Double D took their place.

" _Some people have a strange way of showing love."_

He let a smile of determination almost rip his face in half. He loved his baby sister and he was going to prove it to her, no matter what names she called him or what stuff she forced him to eat. With these valiant thoughts in mind, he marched his way towards the tree that seemed to be a natural ladder for reaching the young woman's window. His smile widened as he gave the giant plant a bear hug, it seemed that the gods of nature were on his side this day! With some awkward movement, and a lot of nerve clearing deep breathes, Ed made his way up the tree, doing his hardest not to look down and see the tiny ground that waited below.

"I hear you, evil demons!" Ed bellowed as the wind picked up, seeming to be influenced by his righteous fury. "You will not get the best of me!" Despite the boisterous attitude from his youth resurrecting his courage, Ed was fighting a huge boxing match with his fear and it seemed like fear was getting the upper hand. Just as his foot was about plant itself on the branch that extended perfectly to Nazz's window, he slipped. A sharp gasp came from the teen as he gripped the tree harder, sliding down a few feet after his mishap. With a growl of determination, he began to scuttle his way up again. Fear threw a jab but Ed dodged, countering it with an uppercut! The strength was draining from his arms as he gave one final heave, pulling himself up to the tallest branch, throwing a few more jabs at his fear and dished out a final uppercut, ending the match with a TKO!

Ed stood victorious on the branch, doing a small victory dance as he guffawed. He then covered his mouth, remembering why he came up here in the first place. Taking a few small steps and doing his best to keep quiet, Ed tiptoed across the branch and got ever closer to Nazz's room window. As he got closer, he noticed a faint red glow coming from inside. Curiosity took over his cautiousness and he took a few risky steps to get a closer look. However, as he tried to take a peek, he noticed a shadow in the window and stopped all form of movement. His face froze and his bones rattled as he imagined what kind of evil creature it must have been. Was it a demon? A ghost who wanted to eat his bone marrow? Nevertheless, he shook his head again, building up the courage to take one more step.

"Ed? Is that you?" The demon knew his name? Oh no! It must have taken possession of Nazz too, because it sounded just like her! Ed prepared his jet thrusters and was ready to leap into the window, hopefully being able to force feed the demon some of his moldy cheese, as detailed in his latest comic book "Attack of the Moldy Demons: Earth's Final Stand!" However, before he could even think of pulling off his daring rescue he heard what sounded like a crack come from beneath him, forcing all of his brain functions to halt as his body froze. He looked up to see that the lights in the girl's room were now on, and standing in the now open window was Nazz, wearing what looked to be some casual clothes with her normally long hair in pigtail braids.

"Ed? What the heck are you doing here?" The aforementioned Ed boy could only stare at her and look back down at the branch, thinking of any lie that his brain could conjure up.

"Uh…bird watching?" Nazz crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Ed could only smile sheepishly at the horrid lie.

"Really? At-" Nazz turned around to glance at the mysterious red light "-8:18 at night?" She was now looking at the Ed boy with suspicion; Ed began to catch on to what dastardly thing she was thinking.

"No! I wasn't trying to peek at you, honest!" Ed scooted back from the edge of the branch and back to the base of the tree, hugging it for balance. Nazz giggled at his words.

"Yeah, because if you were then you are pretty terrible at it, what with all of the yelling and dramatic dialogue, I thought you were hosting a peeping party out here or something." She rested her hands on the window, smiling gently at the terrified teen. "Why don't you come in Ed, I got some leftovers from dinner we can share if you want to." Deep within the unused parts of Ed's mind, he felt slightly weird about this. Nazz, the most popular girl in the Cul-De-Sac, inviting him in after he was caught trying to, as she thought he was doing, peaking on her? When he was actually planning to, even better, break in and steal from her? Something seemed fishy. However, in the parts of Ed's brain that he did use, the happy little brain cells all screamed for food as Ed's tummy growled. His thoughts went back to the scrumptious dinner his mom was making for him as they spoke.

"Um…are you sure?" Ed asked, still shaking. Nazz kept her smile and nodded.

"Sure dude, just let me go downstairs and let you in, okay?" She stepped out of her room and quickly came back, looking over Ed's difficult situation. "Oh and please be careful!" She vanished into her doorway again, leaving the one short of a full deck Ed boy all alone in the evil tree. Ed gulped and hugged the tree tighter, sliding down ever so slowly. As soon as he was down, he went around to Nazz's front yard and seen her already standing at her porch, donning her always beautiful smile.

"We need to be quiet; my parents have to get up really early tomorrow." She whispered as she led the stumped Ed inside by the arm. It was weird to Ed how nice she was being to him. Sure she had always tried to be kind to the Ed's before, but even he had noticed how, as they all had gotten older, Nazz seemed to have started losing patience with him and his friends. He brushed all of this off, however, as soon as they stepped into the kitchen. It was about the same size and shape as his, except it was a lot cleaner and more refined with fancy silverware hanging around with decorated plates sitting at the table.

His eyes were not the only thing that noticed a difference, but his nose as well. It did not smell as heavenly as the food his mother cooked, but it smelt like a pretty good runner up. As Ed was in a daze observing his surroundings, Nazz had already prepared a plate for him and set it down on the table, waiting for the big oaf to snap out of his trance.

"Earth to Ed? Your food is ready." Nazz said, giggling. Upon his name being uttered by the prettiest girl he had ever known, Ed quickly went to sit across from her. Looking down at his plate, he saw white. A lot of white and what looked to be chicken mixed in. Is Nazz trying to feed him snow? He really liked to eat snow, but it was little late for it he had to admit. Or maybe it was ice shavings, he really loved those too. He used the thoughtfully provided fork to poke it, seeing that there was some stuff inside it too, some kind of green stuff. Across from him, Nazz rubbed the back of her neck and chuckled sheepishly.

"Sorry if it's not much, I am trying to eat a little healthier and I usually don't have guest over." She rethought her statement "Well, unless it is Kevin or Rolf of course." Upon saying their names, her face lit up a little. Probably when she said Kevin, Ed thought. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, Ed ate the entire plate of food in one bite and chewed it, curiously. It was bland at first, but when his tongue graced over the chicken and the strange green substance, Ed smiled at the flavor. It kind of tasted like gravy actually. After a few more seconds of messy chewing, he swallowed it, satisfying his rumbling stomach for the moment. Nazz was still in shock from seeing him eat the entire plate in one bite. That shock soon turned to laughter and then devolved into some stifled giggling.

"Wow Ed, you're a riot!" She said, making the tall, unhygienic teen blush. She managed to calm herself and looked the boy in the eyes. "So, why were you sneaking outside my window?" She asked. Ed flinched, not knowing she would jump straight to the point. He scratched his arm and hummed to himself for a second or two.

"I was wondering if I could..um..borrow your brush!" He then remembered Jimmy's words. "Your newest one, the one with the really soft brush stuff." Ed said, mocking the movement of brushing his shaved head. Nazz raised her eyebrow again, piecing together what he was saying and what he had been doing.

"Ed, were you trying to steal my new brush?" She asked in the same tone a mother does to a son who got caught doing something naughty. Ed lowered his head and nodded slowly. Nazz was still puzzled and kept pressing him.

"Why would you want it? I mean, no offense, but I really don't think you need it." The blond girl said, looking at the boy's shaved head. Ed raised his head a little and opened his mouth, thinking if he should mention Sarah or not. Then, before a lie could form in his nearly empty skull, his mouth crossed the finish line first.

"Sarah wanted me to get her a new brush, but I forgot to and tried to steal yours instead." He deeply regretted saying those words, as it pretty much violated every rule Eddy had taught him about stealing. Plus, if Nazz ever mentioned it to Sarah, then he was pretty much guaranteed a visit from his sister's two best friends: Mr. Brother Beater and Sir. Idiot Smasher. Regardless, it made him feel really good to admit that for some reason. It felt like a pit in his stomach had relieved itself. Or maybe that was his bladder? He could not tell at the moment. "I'm sorry Nazz."

A long, awkward silence took over the already quiet kitchen, as neither party moved or said anything for what felt like an hour. Nazz always tried to see the good in people, and right now it was easy to see that Ed really did feel bad about the act he had almost committed. If it had not been for the fact that Kevin had called her, she never would have found the poor fool trying to sneak in. It was a good thing she had forgotten the phone in her room, or else her and Ed would be having a conversation that would be nowhere near as polite.

"It's alright Ed, I understand." She said, walking over to pat the rather smelly teen on the back. Ed looked up, still looking ashamed. "Wait here, I'll be right back." He watched as she walked out of the kitchen and up the set of stairs that rest near the front door. After wallowing in some more self pity and looking over his very empty, yet still interesting plate, he heard her coming back. He turned to see her with a pearl white brush, adorned with bronze colored bristles that looked as soft as a chicken's embrace. Ed smiled; he wished that he could hug a chicken right now.

"Here you go Ed; this should be good enough for Sarah." She laughed softy "Well, as good as it's going to get for that girl." Ed laughed with her and took the brush, thanking his lucky stars that Sarah did not pop out of thin air and clobber his brains out for laughing at something involving her. With how nice it looked, Ed felt unworthy just looking at the seemingly divine brush. Its bristles looked like they had come from a unicorn's mane and the texture felt like a freshly washed blanket. Not that Ed knew what that felt like, he hadn't washed his in over ten years.

"When should I return it?" Nazz shook her head and went to sit back at her side of the table.

"You can keep it." Just as he was about to protest, she held her hand up, shushing him "Don't worry about it, if my parents ask, I'll tell them I gave it to Sarah as a gift or something." Generosity. This was something that Ed knew Nazz was famous for among her friends, but never had she shown it around him or his friends before. Nazz rested her head in between her palms, looking deep in thought.

"You know when I caught you outside?" Ed nodded, letting the embarrassing memory flood back. "Well, I was actually talking to Kevin before I found you." She twirled a little bit of her hair as she seen Ed flinch at the mention of the red haired bully's name. She smiled as she went on "He said some things I never thought I would hear in a million years, especially when it came to you guys." She covered her lips and gasped. "Oops, I wasn't supposed to say that." She giggled and swatted the air.

"Ah, what he doesn't know won't hurt him right?" She giggled again, a sound Ed would compare to any piece of beautiful music, like those awesome rock songs he heard in his monster movies or those heavy metal songs Eddy let him listen to sometimes. Just pure, unadulterated perfection. "He talked about what you guys did in the trailer park and how, if it wasn't for you guys coming with him, he never would have gotten his bike back." Silence reigned once again for a few seconds, the Ed boy's mind absorbing as much of this info as possible. What she was saying just had to be made up. Heck, even the writers for his comics could not come up with this supposed malarkey. Despite the look of disbelief clear on his face, she went on.

"After seeing the rage in his eyes when he assumed you guys stole it, I thought he was going to do more than hurt you guys." Ed could swear she sounded like she was going to cry "I have never seen him that angry before. He actually threatened me!" She added, sounding surprised at her own words. Her head sunk as Ed looked at her "But…hearing him on the phone…he apologized at least twenty times before I even spoke a word." Ed looked down at the brush again, idly playing with the bristles as he took in every word.

"I think it will be a while before he actually admits it, but I think he may be changing his view of you guys." Nazz watched as Ed's face went from disbelieving, to confusion and finally resting on a soft smile during the conversation. Her eyes trailed to the clock behind Ed and yawned. "Geez, with how long we've been talking I thought it would be later than 8:30."

Ed yawned back and nodded, feeling pretty tired himself. He looked down at the brush and widened his eyes in horror, a dreadful realization suddenly hitting his small mind.

"Ed? What's the matter dude?"

As soon as her worries were pronounced, Ed shot out of his chair, shoved the brush in his pants pocket and rocketed out of the house, leaving the front door wide open and his chair tipped over. Before her butt left the chair and her jaw had come off the floor, Ed appeared in the doorway again with his eyes still wide and his body full of adrenaline "Bye Nazz! Thanks again for the brush!" Ed yelled and shut the door, vanishing faster than a speeding bullet. Nazz was left alone at the table with an empty plate, an almost broken chair and the faint smell of urine in the air.

* * *

Eddy was thinking.

For the first time in his life, he was actually thinking about something more than hot girls, money, ways to get hot girls, money and ways to get money. He stared at his pink ceiling and simply thought about stuff, not even bothering trying to sleep, despite how much he needed it after what had happened today. He tilted his head to the right to look at his alarm clock. The dark made it difficult to see the hands, but after squinting he was able to make out that it was a little after ten thirty. He groaned and let his head hit his very comfy pillow. He was not even in the mood for his magazines right now, which meant something must have been very wrong.

" _So…uh you know…thanks for the help."_

Kevin. _The_ Kevin had said "thanks" without any hint of sarcasm or following it up with a punch to the gut and declaring that they were stupid for believing him in the first place. He had been pinching himself ever since he walked through the door; still not believing what had happened was real. Eddy was not one to take things at face value, always believing that someone, especially the lunatics around here, had a hidden motive for being kind to him or his friends. That is what his brother had taught him when he was younger: people are only nice to get what they want and when they have it, they will not think twice about leaving you in the dirt.

Eddy sat up and rubbed his eyes, letting another groan escape his gullet, this one being louder than the last. He would rather believe that Ed was a secret genius than believe that Kevin was actually nice to him for once. Still, the more he analyzed it, the less he believed Kevin had a motive for faking it. Kevin was a moron, he would sooner split someone's brains out than string them along for a conniving plan he had in mind. He was just too impatient to do something so smart. Sure, Eddy was not one to talk when it came to impatience, but he knew when someone was up to something devious, mostly because he knew how a lot of people thought around here. He did not write his "Who to Scam and When" book without thinking about every kind of variable and obstacle that would get in the way when it came to conning those idiots. One has to know the herd and patrols before he rustles the cattle.

The only people he had yet to fully figure out was the Kankers. They were unpredictable, they knew almost no mercy and they would stop for no one. They did whatever the heck they wanted, even avoiding any kind of punishment for all they have done to the kids and, most importantly, him and his friends. While that part scared him, he kind of envied that power they had over the kids. They could tell Kevin to rub their feet and he would barely bat an eye before giving in. Oh how he would love to see that happen.

However, just when he was beginning to categorize them as total, irredeemable rapist, they surprised him again. Well, one of them had any way.

* * *

"Ed! You find anything yet?" Eddy whispered, keeping his eyes on the back door of the Kanker's lair as Ed came around left side of the trailer, tiptoeing as he approached him. Ed shook his head.

"Nope, but I found this!" Ed pulled out something tiny and held it in front of his face, his eyes looking over every detail of whatever was between his thick fingers. Eddy could barely see it so, thinking it was loose change, swiped it from his big friend and looked it over. He groaned and shoved it in Ed's face.

"Ed you idiot! Does this stupid wishbone look like a motorcycle?" Eddy whispered harshly. Ed looked closer and hummed to himself.

"Maybe if we break it and make a wish it will be!" Ed said, bouncing up and down in excitement. Eddy growled and threw the lucky bone on the ground, grabbing Ed by the collar.

"Maybe if I break my fist over your head it will make us get home faster!" Eddy raised his fist and paused, swearing that he heard something. He leaned to the right, almost touching the back of the trailer and could just barely make out what sounded like Double D's voice. "Ed…do you hear that?" Ed opened his eyes and was surprised that Eddy's fist had yet to paint his face with bruises.

"Uh…Eddy, where is Double D? Ed asked, a tinge of fear in his voice. Eddy, feeling the same amount of suspicion, let go of his not so smart friend and pressed himself against the trailer, slowly inching his way toward the bend of the mobile home. Ed followed suit, slithering on the ground like a snake behind his shorter friend. Eddy peaked around the corner and came upon a situation that made his bladder want to empty itself.

Edd had indeed found the motorcycle. However, he also seemed to have found a certain Kanker who had the hots for him: Marie Kanker. Eddy could barely make out what was happening because of the darkness, but thanks to the lights that came from the front windows, he could at least make out their moving shapes. Ed came out from under Eddy, squinting so that he could get a better look at the scene. When he eventually did see what was happening, he opened his mouth to scream, only to be shut up by Eddy.

"Shut your trap, dumbass! Do you want to screw him over even more?!" Eddy said, spitting a little in Ed's face as he tried to keep quiet. Ed looked back at the scene in horror.

"But Eddy! We have to help Double D!" Eddy shushed him again, focusing on the scene again. The more he looked at it, the more it seemed like something was up. Anything involving a Kanker usually involved a lot of screaming and misery from the party they are tormenting but, from the angle Eddy was looking at the scene from, it looked like Marie was just talking to the sock headed boy.

Eddy leaned towards the two, trying his best to at least pick up a bit of the conversation.

"If you don't tell me the truth, I'll beat it out of you." He heard the girl say. Double D reared back a little but answered her right away "B-but it is the t-truth! I swear!" Eddy leaned back and raised an eyebrow. The truth? What truth? That the Kankers are a bunch of stalker psychos who need to learn to take a hint? No, Double D did not have the balls to say that and, if he did, then he would be in the dirt with two black eyes right now. In response to this, Marie threw something away, most likely a cigarette, and made her way to the front door.

"What's going on Eddy? Why isn't Double D running away?" a very curious Ed asked. Eddy ignored him, trying to figure out the same thing himself. After a brief pause of nothing happening, and Edd saying something else, Marie went inside the house, leaving Double D all alone with the bike. Instead of immediately getting out of there, his friend collapsed onto his knees, taking a few deep breathes.

"What is he doing?! Get the fucking motorcycle Double D!" Eddy whispered, doing his best not to run out there and drag the thing away himself. Sure enough, after a few more seconds of being a drama queen, Edd got up and ran toward the bike, doing his best to pull it along with what little strength his skinny arms could muster. Eddy jumped back to the side of the trailer and pulled Ed back to, slapping him on the back of the head to keep him quiet.

"Act like we didn't see anything, got it monobrow!" Eddy said. Ed was quiet for a moment before he nodded. As they waited for their very weak friend to pass by with the bike, Eddy did his best to make sense out of what just happened. Why didn't Double D scream for help? Why did Marie leave him alone? Why the heck did she let him take the motorcycle?! Whatever questions he wanted to ask Edd disappeared from his mind as soon as the sock headed boy passed in front of them, with Kevin's crotch rocket in tow.

* * *

Now that he was out of danger and not afraid of being eaten alive by the Kankers, Eddy still could not find a reasonable explanation for the scene he had witnessed. Was his first impression of the Kankers wrong? He highly doubted it, they were probably all still sociopaths who got off on the misery of him and his friends. If that was the case, then why did he always feel an irritating itch on this thought whenever his mind went back to that scene? Eddy sighed heavily and rolled over face first in his bed. He was just going to have to ask Double D all of this crap tomorrow after he finally got to sleep.

* * *

"Almost finished…" came the words of a very sleepy scientist as he looked over a piece of paper filled from top to bottom with words. His eyes being held open by sheer willpower alone, Edd looked over at the clock and wanted to die on the spot. It was eleven thirty and he had yet to make his bed. Before he leaped out of his chair like a gazelle, he closed his notebook and looked at the cover, once again reading the title out loud.

"My Solutions." He said, very drowsy as he got up and turned off his work lamp. Getting to work, he fixed his sheets, used an iron to smooth out his covers and made sure to clean off his pillow to rid it of any dead skin cells that had accumulated. He let out a loud yawn and collapsed on the bed, not even bothering to change into his pajamas. As he laid there, eyes closed and relaxed, he opened them again and looked over at his study table, seeing that his treasure was still there, scared that it would disappear if he looked away for even a minute.

He smiled and lazily tried to cover up, barely managing to pull the sheets over his body and sighed happily. He could not wait till tomorrow. The cleansing sun would rise and it would be a fresh start for him and his two best friends.

Tomorrow…

Tomorrow…things will be so much better.


	4. A Glimmer of Hope

**From here on out, chapters will get a bit longer and, in turn, it may take me a little longer to write them. Thank you for reading, I hope you drop me a review and tell me what you thought of it.**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Update Note: Fixed some more stuff!**

* * *

 _ **Chapter Four:**_

 _ **A Glimmer of Hope**_

" _I can't tell you how much I wish we could shut up and smile."_

Lee smelt something.

It was faint, but she could smell a pretty rank scent that seemed to linger around the whole trailer. It was a stench that was easily recognizable, as she had smelled it all her life, especially around her three fathers. But it had been a long time since she had detected the scent in the Kanker home. It was the smell of a lie.

The red headed Kanker had made it very clear when she had met her sisters that she was the alpha and that they were the lower class. If they said or did anything out of line, then they would pay the price. However, as they had gotten older and met the Ed's, she had grown a little more lax, letting them do whatever they wanted as long as they did not cross two lines: don't touch her ketchup in the fridge and never lie to her face. It looks like she had gotten a little too lax, but she had a pretty good idea who had crossed one of those lines.

It was a Sunday and seven-thirty in the morning, a combination which meant heaven for the older sister, at least till her sisters decided to get their lazy butts up. She was sitting on the couch, lazily flipping through channels trying to find something that would hold her attention for more than a minute. Unfortunately, she was having much luck in her endeavor.

"Why the hell are you up so early?" Lee turned her head and seen a very confused Marie, not having changed out of her pajamas yet.

"I could ask you the same thing." She said, her eyes moving back to the television. Marie went to sit on the couch with her, letting out a loud yawn,

"I barely got any sleep last night, had to smoke at least twenty before I could even shut my eyes." Lee looked over at her younger sister, just now noticing the bags under her eyes.

"Rough." She stated simply, looking back at the TV. Marie looked at her older sister out of the corner of her eye. Lee seemed very different in comparison to yesterday. When they were on their way to steal Kevin's bike, she had smiled and laughed all morning, seeming to be filled with infinite confidence. However, when Marie had "confessed" to "scrapping" the motorcycle, Lee seemed to have become more reserved, barely speaking a word the rest of the night. Marie growled to herself as she kept looking back forth from the TV to Lee. This whole situation was already making her bonkers, but her sister being a big baby about it was the last straw.

"Lee, what the hell is wrong with you?" She asked, throwing the pillow she was holding on the ground. The red head teen did not budge. "Is it because of what I did to the motorcycle?" Still no answer. Marie sighed, and began to raise her voice "So the motorcycle is gone, big fucking whoop!" She pointed towards the kitchen "I cleaned a week's worth of fucking dishes for it, with my bare hands! Isn't that enough?!" She yelled at the red head, desperately wanting to hear her say something.

Silence reigned for at least five minutes, Marie's sharp intakes of air after her outburst and the TV being the only source of noise in the living room.

"You should know better than to lie to me, Marie." Lee said, venom leaking from every syllable as she slowly turned to look at her little sister. The blue haired smoker recoiled a little at her words, but held her ground.

"What the fuck do you mean? I haven't lied to you!" She said, her eyes narrowing to a glare. The elder sister returned her glare with a chuckle.

"Do you think I'm fucking stupid?" Marie opened her mouth to say something else, but she was cut off. "You really expect me to believe that you would confess to something like that?" Lee stood up, looking down at her little sister, who looked a lot less confident than she did a second ago. "I hate to tell you Marie, but you're a selfish piece of shit, just like me and May. You would sooner throw someone under the bus than confess to something that would make me beat the shit out of you." Lee bent down, getting right in her younger sister's face as she waited for her to mutter even a word. "Now, are you going to be a good little girl and tell me the truth or not?"

Marie really, _really_ wanted to disagree with her elder sister. But she couldn't. Every word she said was true. She was a cornered rat and Lee was a very hungry and very angry cat. The urge to confess was taking over her entire being as she remembered all the trouble that one event had caused her. Because of him, she had been forced to undergo a disgusting trial in order to make up to her sisters and she had struggled to even get to sleep. All because of… _him._ She just had to say it and all of her troubles would disappear. Lee would probably forgive her for real this time, they would go and retrieve Kevin's bike again, then Lee's plan would go off without a hitch. Just like she had told her and May yesterday in the lane.

Her lips quivering and her heart racing, she opened her mouth and was just about to form the words that would spell her freedom. Then, out of nowhere, a memory. A very specific memory of a seemingly insignificant moment flashed in her mind, causing everything in her brain to halt its course as it analyzed it. The setting was familiar; she was standing on the porch of her and her sister's trailer in what looked to be the middle of the night. Standing in the darkness about ten feet away was a very scared, yet smiling teenage boy. He wore an orange tee shirt, purple shorts and a black, white striped beanie. His knees were shaking and his eyes were filled with trace amounts of tears as they maintained eye contact. The eyes she looked into contained fear, yet as she dug deeper she seen a trace amount of gratitude in them as well. Then, he spoke two words. Words she had wanted to hear for a long time, deep down inside her blackened heart.

" _Thank you."_

Reality got back to her after she silently mouthed those words. Why did it mean so much to her? She had had no trouble yesterday torturing him along with his two friends before that encounter, so what did it matter? What had happened to the rush she had gotten just a few hours prior when she had seen the fear in his eyes as she closed in for the kill? That almost sexual feeling of having absolute control over a weaker being, the addictive blood rush as their pupils shrank; the realization of their absolute helplessness sinking in as their faces went white.

If she relished that feeling as much as she had…why did it feel so much better to hear those words? To take the heat for him and suffer in his place when she, as Lee said, would have usually ratted him out to save herself. Why did it feel so good? What the heck was wrong with her? Did some kind of mind control worm dig into her skull while she was guarding that motorcycle? That was the only explanation that she could think of. Regardless of this inner turmoil she was trying to wade through, she fixed her older sister with a glare, the two of them almost touching noses.

"Fuck off."

An uneasy stalemate took hold of the entire trailer as the two glared holes into each other's skulls. The TV had long been turned off in the middle of Marie's internal struggle, setting the whole trailer ablaze with silent suspense. Out of the corner of her eye, Marie saw Lee's fist ball up and start shaking, seeming to be preparing to knock her lights out. The younger sister rolled her sleeve up, balling her own fist as the two sister's foreheads touched. Then, just as blows were about to be thrown, Lee stood straight up, took a deep breath and stomped across the room towards the door, stopping only to swing the door open, almost breaking the already rusty hinges as she did so and slammed it shut. Marie, now left alone as the suspense in the room steadily decreased, simply took a deep breath of her own and gripped her forehead, seemingly trying to rid herself of her conflicting worldviews.

* * *

"Good morning world!" yelled a very enthusiastic Double D as he swung his bathroom door open, letting the steam that had accumulated after his morning shower flood out of room. The hallway echoed his words for a few more seconds and he chuckled, shutting the bathroom door behind him. He had not been in a mood as good as this since Father had let him clean the entire house blindfolded! Gripping the towel around his waist, the shower capped teenager made his merry way toward his room, humming a happy tune to himself all the while. It seemed unusual for him to be so positive, after all that had happened to him and his comrade over the past four years, it seemed like their luck would never turn around. The downright cruel way his friends had been treated seemed to hint at an eternal future of torture and humiliation, only halting whenever they tucked into their warm, comforting beds, most likely crying all the while as they escaped to the much better world of dreams.

But no more! Edd could not contain his smile as he opened the door to his room, taking a glance toward his work desk and setting his eyes upon his trusty notebook. The notebook that would solve all his friends' woes and perhaps even help the other kids with their problems as well, leading them all to a much happier life and bringing a sense of camaraderie to the depressing Cul-de-Sac. Heading to his closet, he picked out today's hat, shirt and pants from his very organized shelves. The only thing that wasn't organized or labeled in his room seemed to be the beams of the morning sun, lighting up the room rather nicely as the boy got changed into his usual attire. Immediately after getting dressed, he headed straight to his desk and opened the notebook, pulling out a small notepad as he read the contents aloud.

"Let's see now… "Sarah: She is short-tempered, very easily agitated and loves to bring harm and suffering to her brother as well as us." Oh dear, I believe that may need a re-write." Double D laughed sheepishly, just imagining the word of hurt Sarah would rain down upon him if she read that. He brushed it off though; while it was harsh it was the truth of the matter, as much as he wished it wasn't. He cleared his throat, reading on "Her motives may seem unknown, but I believe it is because she doesn't know how to properly express her love for her brother in a conventional manner, leading him to assume that she harbors a hatred towards him". Double D scribbled down some more notes on his notepad, making sure to add some bullet points for some solutions to the problem. A few footnotes here and there…and done.

He hummed to himself as he looked over his notes, taking another look at the page. He must have worked harder than he thought, as he still had bucket loads of information that he could jot down about the red headed sibling. It slightly embarrassed him that he could jot down this much information about a person he barely knew personally. Most of it was assumptions, sure, but these assumptions were based on some facts he had gathered after years of dealing with his abusive peers. He wished that he had gotten to know them personally, without the vitriol and the boiling hatred that seemed to surround him and his two companions. Then again, if he did know them personally, then there would be no need for this handy dandy notebook.

"I believe tackling Sarah first will be the most difficult. But, as they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Edd sighed as he read over everything he had written down. "A very, very difficult and mud covered step."

A few more minutes of writing down some additional notes, Double D got up and headed down stairs, contemplating his next action.

"Eddy is no doubt still in bed. Ed, on the other hand could be up and about." He said, scratching his chin in thought as he grabbed some orange juice from the fridge. As he poured himself a glass, he looked over at the clock on the over. "8:15. Hmm…Ed is usually up around nine and Eddy doesn't get up till noon." Edd went to his kitchen table, reviewing his notes one more time as he sipped his juice.

"Well, I have always told Eddy that it's healthy to wake up early!" Double D said with a giggle. After putting on his wristwatch and making sure he had fulfilled all of his morning's sticky notes, he stepped out the door, strolling down the street towards Eddy's house with notepad in hand.

* * *

"Gee Plank, sure is quiet around here right now isn't it?" asked a boy sitting on top of a fence, his voice being projected towards a piece of wood he held in his arm. The wood, unsurprisingly, said nothing, but its smile spoke a thousand words as to what it was thinking. Which was nothing. Yet the boy talked with him anyway, seeming to be able to interpret his silence. He put an ear to the mouth of the piece of tree.

"Yeah, I guess. But you always wake me up with your talk about…what was it again?" He asked, turning to the wood. He nodded after "hearing" what it said "Oh…it was that stuff again huh? You need to get your mind out of the gutter Plank!" the boy said, laughing loudly. He calmed down quickly and continued to observe his surroundings, looking at the dew that decorated the various objects and houses, giving them a shine as the sun shined down upon them.

"Remember Kevin yesterday, buddy?" He asked, recalling Kevin's lipstick covered face, causing him to giggle a little bit. "Yeah, the Kanker's are freaky aren't they, Plank?" Jonny gasped upon hearing what his wooden friend had said.

"Plank! You shouldn't look at them there! What are ya?" He asked, hoping down from the fence. He mumbled something to himself and saw a familiar figure walking down the lane.

"Hiya Double D!" He said, waving toward the beanie wearing boy, who waved back, smiling.

"Good morning, Jonny! Up and early I see." He said, stopping in front of the shorter boy. Johnny nodded and shook Plank.

"Yeah, no thanks to this bozo, always talking about stuff when I'm trying to sleep," Jonny leaned in close to the orange shirt wearing teen "It's usually naughty stuff though." He whispered, causing Double D to blush slightly and clear his throat.

"Yes well, Plank is getting at that age when he starts to get curious about that material." Edd said with a chuckle. Jonny laughed as well, suddenly becoming alert and turning towards his wooden pal.

"Plank wants to know where you're going so early." He said, pointing to the wood in question. Double D rubbed his neck.

"I was heading over to Eddy's house to discuss some of my thoughts, but I decided to go for a little walk first. After all, it is a beautiful morning and I did not want to spoil it!" Jonny nodded, finding it weird how happy Double D was. Usually he would be a lot more introverted, keeping to himself and just talking with his friends as he had been for the past two years or so. This change in behavior was strange, but welcome to the jovial, bald boy.

"You bet it is! Plank says he hasn't seen a morning this nice in four years!" He then looked at the wood "Oddly specific, dontcha think?" Edd nodded, looking toward the blue sky. The morning sun slowly rising over the horizon, painting the clouds and sky that surrounded it a light shade of orange tinged with pink. It indeed has been a while since he had seen a morning this beautiful. Almost symbolic, he would say. His thoughts then went to his notebook as he looked at his watch.

"Well Jonny, I better get going. Waking Eddy up this early is going to be trial in and of itself." He said walking away, waving as he made his way down the street. "Bye Jonny! Have a good day!" Jonny waved back.

"You too Double D!" Jonny said, stopping his waving when the sock headed Ed boy had rounded the block. He smiled; it had been a while since he had had a conversation like that with one of the Ed's. Unlike everyone else, Jonny never really lost faith in the trio of troublemakers. Even after four years of being scammed and jipped by them, he always knew that someday they would turn a new leaf. Just from that conversation alone, it looked like he had been right to hope, at least a little bit. He turned toward his wooden companion, rolling his eyes at whatever he had "said".

"No Plank, we are not going to Nazz's house again." He stated, his voice utterly deadpan as he walked down the lane "If you wanna do that stuff maybe you should start hanging out with Eddy...what do ya mean I'm a party pooper?"

* * *

Ed sighed as he looked up at his brick ceiling. Last night had certainly been an interesting one to the rather dim teen. First he had helped Kevin get his bike back, which had turned out remarkably well considering the fact that they had avoided the Kankers, which was no easy feat. Then he had come home and been blackmailed by Jimmy into getting a new brush for Sarah, which led to him being caught by Nazz, her giving him the brush and having a long talk with her about Kevin and stuff.

When he had come home, he was expecting nothing less than Sarah yelling at him for being late. Sure enough, she had started yelling as soon as he had come in, causing the two to reenact the routine they always did. Sarah would yell, Ed would protest and then his mom would side with her, just like always. However, things changed whenever he had presented the brush to her. Ed was not the smartest person in the world, far from it, but he could have sworn that when he handed the brush to her, he had seen her eyes light up for the first time in years. The last time had been when he had last played with her when she had been a baby, which seemed like centuries ago. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the light vanished and she resumed yelling at him, forcing him to his room without dinner once again. How he wished that he could turn back time and live out those halcyon years again, back when Sarah did not have fully developed vocal chords.

He had not been awake that long, about maybe ten minutes or so and those minutes had been spent idly staring at the ceiling. Had this happened two days ago, Ed would have been severely depressed about what had happened, once again pondering whether his sister indeed loved him or not. However, he had taken Double D's words to heart; holding on to the hope that she did indeed love him and the small amount of happiness he had seen in her eyes last night gave him some credence to his "Sarah really loves me" theory. Another thing that had surprised him last night was that Jimmy seemed to have kept his word, something that had never happened in the history of his world. It looked like things were looking up for the ugly duckling.

He rolled over and sat up, letting out a loud yawn as he scratched his back. His eyes moved to the nearly broken wall clock that hangs near his door. He could just barely see the hands behind the broken glass, but it looked like it was close to 8:30. Getting up, he stretched his unused muscles and made his way to the door. He opened it slowly and peeked out; making sure that Sarah was not waiting outside with a mallet again. Luckily his depraved sibling was not on patrol, yet he remained apprehensive as he made his way toward the washer and dryer, where his clothes were stored every night. Irony knew no bounds when Ed was involved.

After donning his usual attire, he slowly crept upstairs, hoping to at least sneak some breakfast before Sarah got up. Yesterday's breakfast had been high in fiber, he had to admit, but Sarah's old brush was not exactly part of a nutritious breakfast. He did not encounter another soul as he made his way to the kitchen. He did not encounter any aliens either, nor a ninja, nor a giant chicken monster. Although he kind of wished he had. His foot was an inch away from touching the black and white tiled floor of the kitchen until he heard a familiar voice.

"Your hair looks amazing Sarah!" Jimmy exclaimed, making Ed nearly jump out of his dirty shoes. He quickly pressed himself against the wall, taking a small peak in the kitchen. Sarah and Jimmy were sitting at the table eating a bowl of Chunky Puffs, using Ed's spoons it looked like. Well, he was used to it by now so no use making a fuss. Sarah laughed at his compliment and twirled a bit of her hair.

"Yeah well, if Ed hadn't been so stupid it wouldn't have looked bad in the first place." She said, making Jimmy chuckle. Ed's face sunk a bit, the depressing thoughts coming back once again full force. However, after shaking some sense into himself, he cheered back up and continued listening to the duo of terrifying children.

"Well, at least he got you a better brush than before, right?" Jimmy offered, surprising the tall boy once again. Sarah scoffed.

"What, you're sticking up for him now?" she quipped, making Jimmy stutter a bit before answering.

"N-no, I'm just saying that he came through for once and got you an amazing brush. I mean, that's got to prove he isn't _totally_ useless, right?" Jimmy said. Sarah sighed in defeat, saying something that Ed thought he would never hear in a million years.

"Yeah, I guess. Still doesn't change the fact that he's an idiot, though." Well, it was something he never thought he would here in a _thousand_ years, anyway. His heart was in the middle of jumping for joy and his small mind, although rather empty, was buzzing with all kinds of happy thoughts. While it may not have been close to an "I love you", this small compliment was still leaps and bounds beyond what he had endured the past four years. What Double D said had been a true; she really did care for him! At least, a little bit.

In the middle of his silent happy dance, Ed heard what sounded like chairs being scooted and bowls being put in the sink, causing him postpone his dance of joy for a later date. Fearing what would happen to his skull if he was caught eavesdropping on her again, Ed quietly ran around the corner of the hallway and hid under the rug, peeking his shaved head out to keep an eye on the two.

"Have you got everything Sarah?" Jimmy asked, walking towards the front door. Sarah followed shortly behind him and dug around in her pink backpack.

"I think so, but I got to go tell my moron of a brother that we're leaving or else he'll call the police again." She said, annoyed, setting her backpack down. Jimmy giggled.

"Yeah, I remember the last time he did that. How many times has he done it now?" Sarah rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

"About five times this month already." Jimmy cringed and coughed nervously.

"Wow and it's just a week into summer vacation." Sarah nodded and began her walk down the hall towards the basement.

"You're telling me." Ed blushed in embarrassment at the memory of having to explain to his mother why a bunch of burly men with guns were standing outside their house five times in a row. To say that she was unhappy would be putting it lightly; he had never seen a person's face turn more than fifty shades of red before. Wait, was Sarah getting closer?

Ed gasped and began to crawl as fast as he could under the carpet towards what he thought was the basement. It was a good thing that he had read "Batapillers! The Crawling Menace of the Night!" or else he never would have learned the ancient, yet simple to master concepts of crawling really, really fast. It had only taken him a month to learn the proper techniques and he only went through five new rugs in that time span, as opposed to the usual ten. His mind in full Batapiller mode, Ed crawled like one of the ancient masters, knowing which fork in the very long rug lead where, recognizing each dust bunny and dead skin cell in the carpet that lay beneath the soft flooring. Eventually, he reached the end of his very dusty journey, taking a deep breath when he resurfaced.

He then immediately took off down the stairs, quietly shutting the basement door before he did so and went into his room, cracking his door open a little like it had been before and flopped onto his bed. He pulled out a random comic from under his nasty, worn out purple mattress and casually pretended to read it. A few seconds later, Sarah appeared in his doorway, looking surprised to see him awake.

"What the heck are you doing up so-" She began, only to be interrupted by Ed.

"Bird watching!" He called out randomly, flashing a toothy grin towards her as sweat ran down his face. Sarah stared at him for a second, totally confused by his outburst. She then groaned.

"Listen idiot, I'm going over to Jimmy's house so don't freak out and call the damn cops again, got it?" She said, making Ed cringe a little at hearing his sister cuss. He nodded fervently.

"You got it Sarah! No man in blue will be waiting for you!" Ed said, continuing to flash his yellow teeth. Sarah rolled her eyes, suddenly wishing she had not gotten rid of the muzzle she used to put on him.

"They better not be, or you'll get more than a grounding next time." She said, turning to leave. Ed reached his hand out, his heart begging him to yell what had just come to his mind.

"Sarah, wait!" his younger sister stopped, turning around and glaring at her idiot brother as she stomped toward him.

"Did you just yell at me? Do you want me to tell-"

"Be careful, okay?" Sarah stopped her yelling and looked at him, seeing concern deep in his eyes. Confusion took hold of her but she shook it off pretty quickly, that small part of her mind that guilt tripped her, which she usually ignored, now clawed its way to dominance. She turned away from him slowly, looking back once more at her brother over her shoulder.

"Yeah, see ya." She said, walking away toward the steps.

He kept his ears open, hearing her shut the basement door and, eventually, heard the distant sound of the front door closing. He was home alone once again. This would usually be the time he sulked around in his room, hoping that his friends would come to his rescue and comfort his ever worsening depression. However, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, a smile graced his lips in that usually depressing spot this day. Before he could ponder more about his problems, however, a very important friend made its presence known with a loud grumbling sound, causing him to halt all the working cylinders in his mind.

"Ed is hungry." He said, guffawing as he looked at his rumbling stomach. He got up, set his comic down and made his way to the kitchen for a very delicious breakfast.


	5. Building Burned Bridges

**Here is the next chapter, I hope you enjoy it!**

 _ **Chapter Five:**_

 _ **Building Burned Bridges**_

" _There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys. There's only you and me, and we just disagree."_

May had seen the whole thing.

Her sisters had fought about the stupidest of things before. They had fought over who sits on what cushion on the couch, who gets the last bit of ketchup from the fridge or who smokes what's left of a cigarette. But never had she seen an argument between the two where Lee had got up and left in the middle of it, not even throwing a single punch to make Marie regret ever saying anything. Something was very wrong with her sisters and she was determined to find out what. The Kanker family had always been taught that showing any kind of sympathy or concern for the well being of others was a sign of weakness that others would take advantage of. However, seeing Marie curled up on the couch, gripping her head like it was about to fall off was something that May could not bear to watch any longer. She was her sister and she was going to help her, no matter what.

"Marie, are you okay?" She asked, walking slowly toward the couch. Marie nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw May, her mind too busy writhing in turmoil to even feel another person's presence. She groaned and sat up straight, looking toward the wall.

"Does it look like I'm fucking okay?" She growled, crossing her arms. May simply stayed quiet, looking down at the ground. Marie took a deep breath and began to rub her head again.

"I just…I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me." She said, bending over and looking down at the hardwood floor, resting her arms on her knees. "Ever since I got rid of that piece of shit motorcycle I've been fucking miserable." She leaned back into the couch, looking towards the ceiling. "Then Lee turns into a big fucking baby about it, saying I was a selfish piece of shit." May nodded, rubbing her arm.

"Well, I was surprised that you owned up to it too." May said, looking at the blank TV screen. "I mean, you never accepted anything was your fault till last night." She turned to look back at her blue haired sister, who was still staring up at the ceiling. "I say Lee would be mad, seeing as how that bike was a big part of her plan." Marie's thoughts continued to wage a civil war on the battlefield of her mind. One side was fighting for the feelings she had right now, which was nothing but contempt for her magically appearing conscience, wishing that everything would go back to the way it was yesterday when she really was an uncaring jerk who just wanted to get in Double D's tighty whities. The other half, however, wanted her to admit to what she really wanted from all of this mess and how she actually felt about everything she had done. It was plain to see what it was, seeing as how that part of her mind waved Double D's crying face as its battle flag.

"Yeah, well I did. And guess what? Lee can kiss my ass if she thinks I'm lying to her." Marie got up and headed toward the kitchen. "I'm gonna make some fucking breakfast." May got up and followed her.

"Marie, I'm worried about you. Could you at least try to tell me what's wrong?" She said as Marie got a tray of eggs from the fridge. To this, Marie simply scoffed.

"Why the hell do you care?" she retrieved a frying pan and slammed it down on the stove, turning to point at her blonde sister "Don't you remember what mom banged into our heads? If you feel concern for anyone, then you're a pathetic little bitch!" May took a step back from her blue haired siblings sudden yelling but she yelled back even louder.

"Yeah?! Well this isn't just anyone! This is my fucking sister that I'm concerned about!" She said, throwing her fist to her side "All I want to do is help, but every time I try, you all just fucking ignore me!" May said, tears forming in her eyes. The side of Marie's mind that wanted to admit to everything successfully bombed one of her apathy's key centers, making the foreign feeling of guilt advance ever closer to the core of her mind. Marie looked up from the pan to her sister, seeing the tears now flowing down her cheeks. That sight made apathy's remaining troops retreat, forcing them back into a corner as guilt wiped out any further resistance, effectively conquering the enemy's base.

"May, I'm…I'm sorry, okay?" Marie said, looking down at the frying pan solemnly. May stared in stunned silence at her sister. Okay, that killed it, something was seriously wrong with her blue haired sibling. She could not recall a time, other than when they were very young kids, when one of her sisters apologized to her. Did someone go back in time and step on a butterfly or something, like in one of those weird movies?

"What…what did you say?" May asked, taking a step closer as the tears continued to stream down her face. Marie groaned and turned toward May.

"I just said I'm sorry, no need to make a big melodramatic moment out of it." Marie said, the smallest of smiles making its way on her face. Despite her sister's words, May still smiled and spread her arms out, ready to engulf her sibling in a crushing hug.

"Ah ah, too close May." Marie said, pushing her away. May, though dejected, nodded and smiled at her older sister. Marie sighed and leaned against the stove. "So, do want to hear what's wrong with me or are we just going to stand here like idiots?" She asked, still putting on a mask of annoyance. May nodded, wiping her tears away.

"Let's talk about it, please." The two of them made their way to the kitchen table and sat down. May looked right into Marie's eyes, well, the one that was not covered by her long bangs anyway. Although the war in her head had been a victory for the forces of guilt, it still did not rid her of the fear of what would happen if she admitted to the deed, seeing as how she still did not fully trust May yet. She sighed, and held her head up with her palm. She was already in deep trouble with Lee, so what was the harm in getting in trouble with May?

"When I was on guard duty last night, someone came to try and take the bike." She admitted, sighing as she did so. May gasped and leaned in.

"What did you do? Knock 'em out?" Marie laughed and shook her head.

"No, but if I would have, then I would be a lot better off." She paused for a moment before continuing. "It was actually Double D." May gasped again, recalling her conversation in the kitchen last night. Then she had a brain fart.

"Why in the world was Double D trying to take that loser's bike back?" Marie shrugged.

"I don't know, but I bet that pansy ass jock forced him to try and get it back for him." She laughed "There is no way that he would have tried otherwise." Marie's thoughts went back to Edd's utter incompetence when it came to lifting the bike, making her chuckle a little.

"Anyway, I was just standing around, smoking my tenth cigarette, when all of the sudden I see his skinny ass trying to take the motorcycle." She shrugged "I guess he was either blind or stupider than I thought, cause I was pretty much standing next to it while he was workin' on it." May shrugged with her and continued to listen.

"When I saw him, I remembered what Lee had said in the lane. About how we were going to make the Ed's ours no matter what they said." She leaned back in her chair, placing her feet on the table. "Still pissed that he got away earlier, I came up behind him and scared the life out of him. Then, he started begging to let him take the bike." Her tone took a regretful turn, making May do her best to piece together what she knew. "I pinned him against the trailer, started lovin on him and was about to go in for the kill, but…he started crying." May's eyebrows almost pierced the roof for how high they raised.

"So? I thought you loved it when he did that." Marie laughed

"I thought I did to!" She resumed her normal sitting position, looking towards the kitchen sink. "But…I guess some stupid part of me regrets that he doesn't like me back." May cocked her head in confusion.

"Doesn't like you back? What do you mean?" Oops. Marie seemed to have forgotten that she was talking to May. About a year into chasing the Ed's, Lee had told Marie that she believed the Ed's hated them and, to spare May the pain, she told her to keep it between the two of them and let the blonde keep believing that they were actually playing hard to get. Marie had taken the news pretty well, not really caring at the time. She just wanted to love on Double D and could have cared less about what he thought. At least, that is what she had been telling herself for the past four years. She waved it off, ignoring her question for now.

"Anyway, when I seen him crying I…I don't know, something told me to stop." She looked down at the table. "It was some kind of weird feeling in my chest, like it was strangling the life out of my lungs or somethin." She chuckled "I've felt it before but I always ignored it, but I guess last night was when I caved in." Marie got up from the chair and walked over to the nearby kitchen window, staring outside.

"So, I backed off and started to talk to him. He told me some bullshit about how he doesn't hate us, he just thinks we have a-" she air quoted while mocking his voice "-rather forceful way of showing them how much we like them". She rolled her eyes "Whatever the hell that means." This was the part she was dreading. If she told May this next part and then the buck tooth blond blabbed off to Lee about it, then she would get a round of "sisterly love" that she would never forget.

"Then I…let him take the motorcycle."

What used to be a thing of myths in the Kanker home was becoming annoyingly common. The dreaded silence washed over the trailer like a shroud, covering every square inch. May could do nothing but stare and Marie just kept looking outside. The racetrack of May's mind was ablaze with activity. In the lead of the race was surprise and following close behind was fear. The two were almost bumper to bumper as they raced for the finish line of her mouth.

"You….what?" She asked, her voice shaking. Marie kept her eyes on the outside for a moment longer and groaned. She was getting tired of all of this silent drama crap.

"I said, I let him take the fucking motorcycle! Are you deaf?" May looked down at the table and then back up at Marie.

"Why…? Do you know what Lee's going to do when she finds out?" she asked with quivering lips. Marie glared at her, balling up her fist.

"She's not going to find out though, is she?" May shook her head immediately, hugging her knees in her chair.

"No! Of course not!" to this, Marie sighed and crossed her arms, looking away from her sister's cowering form.

"She better not, or else we'll have a repeat of last weekend." Marie threatened, a growl hanging over her voice. May's eyes widened even more and she slowly nodded. Marie relaxed a bit more and leaned against the wall.

"To answer your stupid question, I don't fucking know why I did it." She said, desperately wanting a cigarette. "I guess I let him take it because I'm asshurt that he doesn't like me. Or something stupid like that." May once again fell silent. The fact that her cerulean haired sister had let Double D take the bike was one thing, but her actually caring about his feelings was something else entirely. All of the times May had seen her sisters in action when it came to the Ed's was the same every time. Lee was the sadistic leader, Marie was the ruthless second in command and May was…well…May. No matter what, Marie would always be the first to leap at Double D, no matter how many shrieks of terror he let loose; she would always grab him by the hat and have her way with his sniveling form. Marie may not have known what the heck was wrong with her, but May was starting to get a good idea. All she needed was a few more hints.

"Hey, May. You remember what I asked you last night?" the blond girl put a finger to her chin and nodded. "Well, I'll ask again anyway." She went and sat back across from May, the two of them meeting eyes. Oh how Marie hated what was about to slip out of her lips. Early in the year, Lee had called a meeting with her so that they could draw straws. The one who got the shortest would tell May everything from the beginning, no white lies or anything stupid like that. And, of course, Marie had drawn the shortest, leading them to get into a scuffle about her accusations of the red head rigging it, which would not have been hard to do, since Lee knew every kind of cheat there was for any game that existed. Marie took a deep breath and sighed, meeting May's curious eyes once again.

"May, what if I told you that the Ed's hated us?"

* * *

Okay, maybe Edd had used the wrong word.

It was not a trial to wake Eddy up, it was a freaking _nightmare_.

"Eddy? Please wake up." Edd whispered for what felt like the millionth time as he tapped on his friend's bedroom window. He looked down at his wristwatch. It had been fifteen minutes since he had left his house, which put him a little bit behind schedule in terms of what they were going to do today. He hated missing deadlines but, in a situation that revolved around Eddy's ridiculous sleeping patterns, it was something he had gotten used to. With a heavy sigh, he leaned against the wall next to the window, yawning as he did so. His eyes did feel a bit heavy; maybe he could take a small nap? But, as soon as his eyes fell to the ground and seen the dew covered grass, he immediately dismissed the idea.

His eyes moved to Eddy's door, still curious about what he had come upon earlier. Instead of seeing a white wooden door, his eyes instead fell upon what looked to be a tent flap. Instead of a knob to open it, it had metal teeth that ran from top to bottom but, despite his earlier searching, he could not find the zipper that held it together. He could not really think of why Eddy's door was replaced, but he dismissed it as Eddy's rowdy mother trying to renovate his room again. Despite trying his best to stay awake, the sock headed boy could not fight the urge to close his eyes. The world went black and his thoughts slowly started to drift towards yesterday. Words could not properly express how much yesterday had fluctuated in tone. First, Eddy had pestered him almost all morning about a scam he had in mind then, when they met up, they were surprised by the Kankers, who were too distracted gloating about stealing Kevin's bike to notice them. They then heard a part of their plan, while in the loving arms of a dumpster, much to his disdain, and then Eddy resolved that they meet up with Ed to hide away from the Kankers at Rolf's house. After talking to Ed about his depression, they made their way to Rolfs, making sure to keep an eye out on the Kankers. After arriving, they went inside and then they were ambushed by the three witches, barely escaping with the aid of Rolf and the accidental aid of Kevin.

Then came the grocery store, the turning point of their already miserable day. After discovering his friend's dastardly habit of shoplifting, they were ambushed by none other than Kevin, still peeved about being left at the "mercy" of the Kankers. He then accused them of stealing his prized motorcycle, an act which came as no surprise to the sock headed teen, seeing as how he always seemed to find something to blame them for. Even after they cleared up that misunderstanding, he still roped them into getting it back for him. Then…Marie…

His thoughts began to fade as sleep began to slowly take him over. Marie Kanker was all that was on his slowly fading mind, her face being one of the final things he saw before he began to truly transition into sleep.

"Yo, Double D!"

Color came back to the world in an instant and a shriek erupted from his lips. He jumped a few feet away and turned around, seeing a laughing Eddy standing in the window. If Edd had gripped his chest any tighter, he would have ripped his heart out of his chest.

"Nice try Double D, but if you want revenge for yesterday, then you might want to tap a little louder." He keeled over in laughs again, leaving Double D to do his best to both reclaim his breath and try to reel in his anger. He simply cleared his throat and walked back to the window.

"For your information, Eddy, I was not trying to exact some form of childish revenge. I am actually here on-" he paused "Wait a second, how long have you been up?" He asked, seeing no signs of morning fatigue in his prankster friend's face. Eddy stifled a giggle.

"For about an hour now." Edd blinked and raised his eyebrow, putting his hands to his hips.

"Then why did you not answer me?" he asked, knowing the answer already. Eddy burst into another fit of giggling.

"Because I didn't want an opportunity to scare the shit out of you just waltz right on by me!" Edd rolled his eyes "So, what the hell are you doing here so early anyway?" Double D cleared his throat once again and put his hands behind his back.

"Well, I came to discuss my thoughts with you on a matter of utmost importance." He said, pulling out his notepad and pressing it against the window. "May I come in?" Eddy looked at him with an utterly bored expression.

"Let me get this straight. You were going to wake me up at-" Eddy looked to the right –" 8:30 in the morning just so you could talk my ear off?" Edd rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously.

"Um…yes?" he said. Eddy's bored expression remained, his eyes narrowing at the orange shirt wearing boy.

"Double D, how many times have we had this discussion? I don't give a shit about school, so stop trying to shove it down my throat." He moved to close his blinds, only for Double D to speak once again, laughing before doing so.

"I hate to disappoint you Eddy, but that is not what I am here for this time." Eddy crossed his arms and continued to look unimpressed.

"Oh really, well what _is_ it about Sockhead?" Edd sighed. He wanted to wait till he was inside before he played his trump card to Eddy, but it appeared that the short teen really wanted to see his hand before they even placed bets. Well, he technically was the leader of the group, so it makes since that he would want in on the plan first.

"Do you remember what transpired last night Eddy? When we helped Kevin? Eddy bit his lip. Great, it hadn't been a dream after all. He was hoping that he would sleep off what happened like a bad hangover, wake up and get back to reality. But of course, luck was never on his side.

"Yeah, why?" He asked cautiously. Double D flipped open his notepad to the first page and pressed it against the window.

"After that, I had an epiphany. We have been at odds with the other kids for almost our whole lives, correct? Double D began to pace back and forth while Eddy continued to look bored.

"Congratulations, Sockhead. You win the award for most fucking obvious question ever!" Eddy said, mocking surprise. "What daring questions shall you ask me next, oh ruthless interrogator?" Double D just rolled his eyes and continued his speech.

"As I was saying, we have been at odds with our lifelong neighbors for, well, our whole lives." Double D held up his left index finger "Very rarely have we been shown any compassion from them and, when they did show it, they went right back to ridiculing us the next day." Double D turned to face Eddy again. "I ask you, why?"

Eddy rolled his eyes and blew a raspberry "Easy, because they are a bunch of fucking pricks, that's why." Edd felt a part of him agree with Eddy, but that part of himself was deep in the reaches of his mind, tossed there after his discovery yesterday.

"Well, that is one possibility Eddy. However, I believe that it is because they simply feel at odds when it comes to us actually helping them, seeing as how we have done nothing but pester them since childhood. Now, I may be wrong on this, but did you notice how uncomfortable Kevin looked when he thanked us?" Eddy laughed and remembered his priceless impersonation of the jerk jock.

"You bet I do, and I'll make sure he never forgets it either." Edd brushed this off, however, he made mental note to reel Eddy's mouth in whenever they met Kevin again.

"Yes well, we are incredibly lucky he even thanked us, seeing as how he was on the verge of killing us not an hour prior." He then remembered where he was going, reaching into his pocket.

"Anyway, I say that we should take this opportunity and strike while the iron is hot!" He brandished his notepad again and opened it "I have here, both in this notepad and my notebook at home, ways that we can circumnavigate their festering hatred of us and better out relationships with our hostile neighbors!" Edd was getting giddier by the second as he imagined his plan playing out, the smile on his face growing wider as he looked at his short friend.

"That sounds nice and all Sockhead, but I have one question." He leaned on the window sill and Edd perked up, curious. "Do you really think that those jerks are going to forgive us just like that?" he snapped his fingers "Do you know how hard we will have to bust our asses for them to even say a fuckin howdy do?" Edd put a finger to his chin. He barely admitted it, but Eddy was right. It would take more than a few good deeds to make them truly forgive the trio. But, they already had an advantage that would aid in their future endeavors, and that was Kevin. Sure, he may still hate them, but they did do something of the utmost importance for the grudge holding boy and, if Edd hypothesized correctly, then that would most certainly aid in their dealings with him. With his approval, they would most certainly have an easier time dealing with the other kids.

"You have a point Eddy, I have to admit." Edd raised his finger again. "However, I believe that working harder towards earning their forgiveness will only aid in our efforts. They will see how hard we are working and eventually, they will begin to warm up to the idea." Eddy scoffed

"Yeah, they sure will warm up to the idea of us kissing their asses while they sit around and laugh at us." He nodded sarcastically "Great plan, Double D." They both fell silent as Edd contemplated his next set of words. He could understand Eddy's pessimism, it was not unfounded after all of the years of Hell the trio had gone through. In fact, it seemed like he had remained the only one of the trio who had not succumbed to the hopelessness of their situation. Even Ed, their most jovial and carefree pal, had fallen victim to his depression when it came to his tyrannical overlord of a sister. He could not lose hope, and he was going to make sure his friends didn't either. Eddy spoke up as he continued to ponder his next thought.

"Besides, how do you know Kevin wasn't lying about thanking us? Did you invent some stupid mind reader last night?" Ignoring Eddy's latter remark, the first part struck a chord with him and brought his mind back to the topic.

"I understand your pessimism Eddy, but I believe that we should at least trust-"

"You want to crash and burn Double D? Fine with me, just let me know when you want to get back to reality." Eddy closed his blinds and walked off toward his bathroom, ignoring his friend's cries.

"Eddy!" Edd yelled and banged on his friends window. He let his fingers run down the glass and he sighed heavily. "Fine, I'll prove to you that it will work!" Edd yelled, not expecting any kind of response from his stubborn friend. "Then, I am sure you will see it is a good plan!" Edd huffed and walked away, his head held high.

As he made his way to the street, Eddy's words began to sink into his mind, taunting him more and more. Maybe he was right? Maybe their relationships with the other kids were beyond repair after all of these years of vitriol and all he was doing was flailing around, desperately trying to cling to something that was too far gone. Maybe it would be best to just give it up and just continue with the way they had been living. It would certainly be the easier option. After all, what good would it do to make up with them now?

"No! I will not succumb to that kind of thinking!" He yelled, gripping the bottom of his beanie, nearly pulling it over his face. "Not after what she proved to me…" Edd took a deep breath and stepped onto the street, deciding to make his way to Ed's house. He was sure that the big lug would approve of his plan.

* * *

The door to Kevin's garage flew open, banging against the wall and announcing his presence to anyone who dared to be on the other side. The lights came on and Kevin looked frantically around the garage, looking for any sign of his precious motorcycle. He sighed in relief, feeling as if the whole world had been lifted off his shoulders. There she sat, basking in the light that the dim garage light provided. Kevin made a mental note to change it later.

"Thank God those crazy skanks didn't steal you back, baby." Kevin said, rubbing the leather seat of his hog. As soon as his eyes opened, he had rushed down the stairs, scared to death that the Kankers had decided to get revenge and steal the bike again. Thank goodness that had not happened or else he would have been forced to team up with the Ed's again. And that was hopefully not going to happen ever again. The motor head turned off the lights and picked up the door control remote, pressing the button to open the garage door. Mechanical whirrs filled his ears as the big sheet of metal slowly rose, letting the light of the morning sun slowly inch its way inside, eventually covering the entire space.

He stepped outside slowly, making sure that those psycho hose beasts were not laying in wait for the perfect opportunity to leap out and pound him. Luckily, such a fate did not await him. At least, not yet. He took a deep breath of the morning air and sighed. Well, at least today started out a lot better than yesterday, when all he could see was red for most of it. His eyes fell to the ground as he remembered the lengthy phone call he had with Nazz last night, his mind doing its best to omit the parts where he somewhat complimented the Ed's. Nazz was not one to hold grudges and she forgave him on the spot, even before he had apologized at least thirty times, adding another reason why he liked that girl to his already long list. He scratched the back of his head as he looked up at the blue sky. Maybe she was right? Maybe he needed to reel in his anger before he did something he would regret. Thankfully, these heavy thoughts were derailed when he spotted a familiar face walking down the lane. Feeling generous with his time, and thankful for the distraction, he made his way toward the boy.

"Hey Jonny, what's happenin' hombre?" He asked, walking towards the wood toting boy. Jonny visibly brightened upon being acknowledged by the popular boy.

"Hiya Kevin! Whatcha doing? He asked, seeming to ignore the second part of Kevin's greetings. Kevin adjusted his hat.

"Nothing much baldy, just checking up on my sweet ride over there." He said, pointing over his shoulder to the garage. Jonny's eyes widened as he looked at the bike.

"Wowzers Kevin! She looks neato!" the bald boy exclaimed and looked down at his wooden compadre "Doesn't she Plank?" Kevin scratched the back of his head, still weirded out by how he still talked to that hunk of wood like it was alive. Well, in this crazy world where Ed, Edd and Eddy can help him get his bike back, anything was possible now in his opinion.

"Plank's wondering how you got it back." He asked, scratching his shaved head. At first, the jock was confused about how the loner even knew his bike was stolen, but he chocked it up to the boy eavesdropping on people again. If that was true, despite how much he really didn't want anyone else besides Nazz to know, he might as well tell Jonny about the Ed's helping him, seeing as how the nosy boy would probably get it out of Nazz eventually.

"Well, only because Plank asked." He teased, causing Jonny to laugh a little."After you, or rather Plank, told me where the Ed's went, I confronted those dorks in the grocery store and was ready to pulverize em', but I figured out a little too late that they didn't take my bike. It was those damn Kankers." Jonny gasped, shivering at the mere mention of the trio "After that, I came up with a plan to get it back from them, and it involved the Ed's. Specifically, them getting it back for me while I sat back and watched." Kevin chuckled a bit and looked at Jonny, expecting him to join in but was surprised to see the boy looking at him in disgust.

"Well, that sounds cruel." Jonny said, putting his hands to his hips. "I know they annoy ya Kev, but that was kind of harsh." Kevin looked the bald boy, slightly confused and rolled his eyes. He hated to admit that he had a point, but he was not really in the mood for a debate.

"Look baldy, I was still pissed and wasn't thinking clearly. So if I want your opinion I'll give it to ya, alright?" Jonny nodded slowly, his frown remaining. "Anyway, we went through the woods and made it to the trailer park. Going over the plan one more time, I sent those dorks to find it while I waited in some bushes. A few minutes later, they wheeled up with my bike in tow." He turned to face his precious vehicle and smirked a bit "She didn't have a scratch on her."

Jonny looked at Kevin, a shocked look on his face. That was the first nice thing he had said about the Ed's in…forever! "I guess that explains why Double D was so happy this morning!" he exclaimed. Kevin raised an eyebrow.

"Happy? Wait, what the hell was he doing up so early?" Jonny shrugged.

"I dunno, he said he was heading over to Eddy's place to wake him to." Kevin crossed his arms and groaned. Well, so much for the Ed's getting on his good side. But that's what happens, you give a dog a bone and they mess up the carpet after they have had their way with your couch.

"I bet they're preparing some stupid scam or something." Jonny shrugged and looked down at his pal, shaking him a bit.

"Well, I know that this bozo wants to go peep at Nazz or something, he hasn't stopped talking about it all morning." He said and turned around to walk away. However, just before his mind could tell him how stupid it was to say this in front of Kevin, he found himself whirled around and lifted by his shirt collar, a red faced Kevin glaring at him teeth bared and fist raised.

"If the next words out of your mouth aren't-"

"No! I wasn't going to do it! I swear Kev!" Kevin kept breathing through his teeth as his fist shook, begging to be brought across the weirdo's face. Instead, he sighed heavily and dropped the boy to the ground, leading Jonny to scurry away and stand back up, shaking in his sandals as he looked at the still somewhat red faced jock. Kevin kept his face to the ground as he talked to the boy.

"Sorry Jonny, I just thought…" Man, maybe Nazz _was_ right about his anger issues. He finally looked up at the white shirted boy, seeing him recoil at his gaze.

"Say Jonny, hows about you and me hang out or something?" In that instant, it seemed like everything that had happened the past thirty seconds disappeared from Jonny's mind as he visibly brightened.

"For real?! We get to-" he found his mouth covered by Kevin's muscular hand.

"Yes, baldy, we get to hang out. Like I promised yesterday" Jonny jumped for joy and did a small dance with his wooden pal.

"You hear that Plank?! We're finally movin' up in the world!" Kevin found his small smile turning into a frown when he heard those words. While it was true that Jonny was near the bottom in the popularity chain, he thought it would make the boy happy if he was above the Ed's. To him, anything was better than being counted among the Ed's. But it appeared like he had been waiting for any chance to be acknowledged by the "cool" kids. It was kind of nice, seeing the boy happy around him for once instead of trying to remain invisible like he had been the past year or so.

"Alright, enough dancing around. Let's go pop in a movie or somethin'." Jonny got all giddy again and bounced in place as he put a friendly arm around the boy, guiding him toward his open garage. Once again, the red head could do nothing but marvel at how reality seemed to be rearranging itself. First the Ed's do something right for once and now he was inviting Jonny, of all people, to come hang out with him. Crazy could not even describe it.

As the confused jock turned to shut the garage door, he could have swore he saw a blob of red in the bushes across the street.

But when he blinked to check again, it was gone.


	6. The Turning Point

**After a while, it's finally here. Criticism is not only welcome, but recommended.**

 **Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!**

 _ **Chapter Six:**_

 _ **The Turning Point**_

" _Understand, no good to run away. Penance now will be his saving grace"_

It had always been a peaceful day on this little planetoid. Not a single atom dared to disturb the calm that permeated the land, making its happy citizens happy and its environment clean and safe. Everyone got along in this utopia, never once had a war broke out and never had they faced any sort of disaster. In fact, they had just finished constructing orphanages with parents already installed, making the little children within cry tears of joy. Yes, it truly was a wonderful world with nary a care.

This meant that they were pretty much begging for something bad to happen.

The sky darkened and the residents of the planet all looked up in shock. The sun seemed to have been completely eradicated from the sky, darkening the entire surface and confusing all of the poor denizens below. As the streets filled with panicked residents, the temperature of the area began to rise dramatically and, when they looked to the sky again, they realized that their lives were already over. The sky had changed from black to dark red. They knew their time would come eventually, they had seen the nearby planets face this fate as well. But they never imagined it would come so soon. The stories had been true; the heat was already scorching the surface of the planet, blackening it and burning the people below, turning them into charcoal. Within minutes, whatever was left of civilization was gone. All that remained was the skeletal corpses of buildings that once stood tall and proud, proving that life could exist on a shallow world such as this. As the last man breathed his last, he looked to the heavens, asking one simple question. Why? What had they done to deserve such a grim fate? His question would fall to the wind, never reaching an ear. Never would his planet be habitable again. As quick as it came, within minutes, the heat began to calm and the planet was shot upward slightly, revealing a light in the distance. Where did the light come from? Perhaps it was a rescue crew who followed the disaster? One could only hope.

Ed let this dramatic scenario play in his mind as he inspected the toast, its previously white surface had been blackened to a crisp, just the way he liked it. He frowned at the fact that he always had to play the bad guy in these toast scenarios, ruining the lives of the perfectly happy citizens on planet Bread every morning. But that thought soon passed as his eyes landed on the butter. With a goofy smile, Ed produced a knife and, with skillful hands, tossed the two pieces of toasted bread into the air. Within the span of a millisecond, Ed covered the blade in butter and put the handle in his mouth, watching as the toast began its descent from the ceiling. The world seemed to be moving in slow motion as he swung his head, launching the knife towards the descending pieces of breakfast. Cutting the air gracefully, the knife impaled the toast, stacking the bread on its blade like a kebab and stabbing the wall, successfully holding Ed's breakfast hostage.

"Nice shot!" Ed said, fist bumping the air. It had been a while since he had made breakfast like that. Back when he was younger, he used to do it like that all the time, never hesitating to put some dramatic flair into everything he did. But, nowadays, it had been a little harder to do that. What with his evil little sister always on his back. Hopefully things will improve, like Double D said they would. He never doubted the always wise words of Double D because, unlike him, the sock headed boy always knew what was right, like which sock went on which foot and how many chickens hugged was too much. Who was he kidding, you could never hug too many chickens.

"Breakfast is ready!" Ed quipped and ran to the wall, grabbing the stuck knife with his teeth. He mentally counted down and threw the knife into the air, sending the toast soaring to the ceiling once again. With ninja like reflexes, Ed grabbed the blade and quickly slashed, sending the rest of the butter onto the dark surfaces of his meal. Using this small span of time, he lay on the floor and opened his mouth wide, waiting for his taste buds to be caked in the mouth watering treats. As soon as his tongue felt contact, he slammed his mouth shut, slowly chewing the scrumptious delight that was buttered toast. The butter slid all over his tongue and the crunchy toast was grinded into mush by his yellow teeth, making the monobrowed teen ascend from reality for a short time and arrive to a state of pure nirvana. A big smile was plastered on his face as he continued to chew; his eyes shut as he savored every second the food remained in his mouth. Then, it was all over. He opened his eyes and he was staring up at his kitchen ceiling, momentarily confusing the big lug.

"What did I come in here for?" Ed asked the quiet house, his mind just now recovering from his fantastic experience. "Oh yeah." He said, putting a finger to his chinless face "Breakfast!" the clueless Ed boy waddled over toward the top cabinet and opened it, digging around for a second or two before producing the crown of breakfast cereals.

"Chunky Puffs!" He exclaimed and made his way over to the cabinet where the bowls are stored. With the caution of a bomb disposal expert, he opened the box. Sarah would pound his face into dust if she figured out he ate even more than a bowl of the prized cereal. Somewhere down the line, she grew to share his admiration of the sugary comestibles, which made him happy that they finally shared something in common. But of course, she eventually took over the entire box every time their mom bought some more, limiting his consumption of the breakfast cereal by one bowl a day, but only when she was home. Their mother had no objections, as always. He quietly poured himself a bowl; afraid that the little pitter patters of the cereal hitting the bowl would summon his sister out from under the sink with a mallet in hand. Oh how he hated the mallet.

"Almost there." Ed whispered to himself, sweat pouring down his forehead. After he was sure he had poured enough, with the care of a bomb disposal expert trying to disarm a nuke, he slowly closed the box and put it back in the cabinet, making sure that not a single dust particle was out of place. With a heavy sigh, the dopey teen wiped a gallon of sweat from his forehead and picked up the bowl. Just as he was about to perform the Gragnorlian march from his latest comic back to the table, the kitchen phone rang, leading to him yelping and tossing the bowl of precious cereal into the air. Ed looked in horror as the cereal scattered everywhere in the air.

"Oh no! Chunky Puffs!" As if on instinct, Ed pulled out his long tongue and proceeded to catch every single piece of sugar that fell from the bowl. Miraculously, he managed to catch every piece on his tongue, leading him to forcing the mound of cereal into his mouth, chewing slowly as to take in the magnificent flavor of the greatest cereal known to man. Unbeknownst to him, however, the bowl which had contained the heavenly food seemed to be less than pleased with this outcome. To express its fury, the dish descended from the ceiling and landed on the big lugs head as he finished swallowing the giant mound of breakfast, effectively blinding him as the phone continued to blare in the background.

"Hold your horses!" Ed said, maneuvering around the kitchen as best he could in his blinded state, knocking over almost everything that dared to stand on more than one leg. Eventually, after he had almost completely destroyed the kitchen, he reached the phone and picked it up.

"Hello!"

"Ed? Is that you?" Ed's face lit up upon hearing the caller's voice. It was Eddy! He could not even remember the last time he had talked to one of his friends on the phone, probably because Sarah was on the phone almost all the time and even when she was not babbling away on it, she was guarding it with her life, waiting for someone to call. At least when it came to the phone bill, Ed could rest easy knowing that one thing in this house was not his fault for once. But enough about that, Ed had a friend to talk to!

"Hi Eddy! You won't believe what happened!" Ed said, bouncing in place as the kitchen seemed to get a little hot for some reason. He could not wait to tell Eddy about what Sarah did last night, he knew Eddy loved secrets!

"Did you grow a brain?" Eddy asked, laughing a little. Ed shook his head, stopped halfway and started to pick his nose. It always felt funny when he went in deep, but when he went as far as he could go, he still could not feel a thing in the almost empty chamber. Well, except for a small thing on a stick in the middle that tickled his whole body when he touched it.

"Duh, nope." Ed said, momentarily forgetting what he had been building up to. Before his brain could recover, Eddy interjected.

"Good, because I need you to dig that wax out of your fat head and listen up. Double D stopped by to talk my ear off and I think he's coming over to your place next." Ed, once again, brightened at this. He began to think of all the cool things he and Double D could do together, watch a movie, read a comic, watch another movie, read more comics. The possibilities were endless! Maybe if Eddy came over too, it would be even more fun! However, before the hyperactive teen could begin to ramble about this, Eddy cut him off again.

"When he gets there, you better keep your mouth shut about what we saw last night, lumpy. Got it?" The short Ed boy sounded both angry and desperate when he demanded this. Ed became confused for a moment, trying his hardest to remember whatever Eddy could possibly be talking about. However, all he could remember from last night was the crack he had made in Sarah's façade of hatred for him. Or at least, he hoped it was a façade. As he thought more and more, he sort of remembered something about the trailer park but that was all he could remember. Ed simply nodded, noting that the kitchen was getting awfully hot now.

"Roger Wilco, Eddy! Double D shall not hear about our secret quest!" Ed declared, turning around for a moment to glance at the kitchen, only to be greeted with a mass of flames coming from the stove and slowly spreading onto the counter. This sight caused him to start panicking as Eddy sighed on the other end.

"Good, he better not. Well, I gotta go Ed, got some shit to take care of." Before Ed could even say a goodbye, the line went silent and the dial tone started to play. But Ed had more important things to worry about at the moment than missing an opportunity to bid one of his friends a farewell. Well, it was almost as bad as what was happening.

"Fire! Bad!" The dumbfounded teen yelled, hanging up the phone and making his way over to the fridge, shoving everything from the top of it onto the floor. He started to dig through the pile of packaged food and eventually found his savior. It was a good thing his dad had picked up a fire extinguisher a few weeks ago, his dad was always smart but not as smart as his best friend. After spending a minute trying to remember how to work the device, Ed took aim and narrowed his eyes.

With accuracy akin to a drunken man balancing on a barrel full of monkeys, Ed shot at the evil fire, managing to hit it a few times as the hose flailed to and fro in his shaky grip. Eventually, he was able to get a grip and douse the fire, bellowing as he did so.

"Take that, evil doer!" he yelled, celebrating his victory over his obtrusive and very familiar enemy. The last time they met, he was without a trusty weapon to vanquish him, resulting in the teen using his tub of gravy to strangle the flames. His mother, however, was not as ecstatic as he was during his traditional victory dance, and he was sure she would not be thrilled this time either. It took a while to clean up all that gravy with his tongue, a very tasty punishment he had to admit.

In the aftermath of the battle, the kitchen was in shambles. The table had been split in half and the chairs had been tossed all over the place from Ed's earlier struggle with momentary blindness. The stove and counter tops near it were covered in foam and had been stained black by the flames. Ed could only gulp as he imagined the punishment he would endure when Sarah came back and the heart attack his mom would have when Sarah inevitably told her. In the wise words of Eddy, he was so screwed.

"Mop! Broom! Where are you?!"

* * *

"Wha…what?"

Oh boy, this was the part she had been dreading for a long time. Telling May had not been that difficult, but the fear of what would happen afterwards had been gnawing at her since she had lost that stupid game with Lee. She should have given her worse than a black eye after that case of obvious cheating. Marie took a deep breath and looked up at May again, seeing the waterworks already forming in her eyes.

"I said the Ed's fucking hate us." Marie said bluntly. Her chest hurt when she said that for some reason, as if she hadn't realized it before she said it. She was getting sick and tired of dueling with herself every time she thought or said anything having to do with the Ed's. May was now looking down at the floor in shock, her hands trembling and her eyes about to burst with tears. As if this her body was under something else's control, she found her hands moving to May's shoulders, immediately drawing the blonde's eyes to her own.

"May, listen. I…" She trailed off, thinking of what to say next. What she was going to say was that she didn't care about their feelings and May shouldn't either, since they would have them no matter if they hated them or not. Lee's plan was to make the trio of con men their toys forever, throwing love right out the window and making the Ed's regret hating the sister's. Marie could not have giggled enough when she heard that plan. It was hands down the best plan Lee had ever come up with. It was so dastardly, so mean, so…amazing, and so…evil. Yet, the more she thought about it, the more _his_ face popped into her mind. His stupid, annoying, pathetic, sad face.

"I-I don't believe you!" May yelled, ripping her sister's hands from her shoulders "This is all just a stupid prank isn't it! You just want to see me cry don't you?!" May stood up and turned away from Marie, making the her get up as well. The crying blonde turned to face her sister, who was hanging her head, glaring at the floor "Well fuck you Marie! You can-"

May was cut off as she felt her face go numb, a loud smack echoing throughout the room as Marie brought a hand across her yelling sister's face. May looked back at her in a mixture of shock and rage, ready to retaliate with a smack of her own, but found Marie in her face immediately.

"Come on May, it's obvious! They run from us every time they see us, they haven't fucking talked to us like normal people since they first met us and to put the cherry on top of the shit sundae, we don't help our case much by chasing them twenty-four seven!" Marie felt like a weight was being lifted from her whole body with every word as May stared at her, tears still forming in her eyes as her sister yelled at her. "They despise us! They wish we were dead! If we vanished from the face of fucking planet they would be ecstatic! Don't you get it?!" The cerulean haired teen's vision was blurring as she felt tears of her own streaming down her face. She did not even bother trying to wipe them away, despite the immense amount of shame she felt crying in front of one of her sisters, heck, she felt ashamed that she was crying at all. May had been the designated crybaby since birth, so what in the world happened to her?

The blonde girl did not respond to her sister's yelling, her shock not letting her breath at all. May could only pinch herself repeatedly as Marie kept her tear filled eyes locked on her own. Anger, confusion and guilt were in her normally apathetic eyes as she gasped for air through her gritted teeth. May still felt her own tears streaming down her face, but she did not feel that sad anymore. She felt something she had wanted to feel for a long time. Being needed. It was so alien that her body almost rejected it like a virus. But the longer she looked at her angry sister, the more it festered inside of her. May slowly reached her hands up to her sister's shoulders, the blue haired teen looking at her in confusion as she reached up to wipe her tears.

"What the hell are you-"

She suddenly found herself engulfed in a hug by May, effectively putting her last sentence out of its misery. Marie was just about to throw her stupid sister off of her, but the blonde's grip tightened when she tried to get out of it.

"Let me go May!" She yelled, trying to worm her way out of the embrace. May kept silent, closing her eyes as her tears rolled down her face. Marie continued to thrash around; doing everything she could to break the hug. But the more she fought, the tighter she squeezed and more her sadness began to overtake her anger. "I said, get the fuck offa me!" She screamed, pretty much sobbing at this point as her fighting grew weaker and weaker. Another minute later and she stopped writhing around all together, accepting her sister's hug with her own as she sobbed loudly. May then joined her with her own sobbing, crying into Marie's shoulder as she did hers.

"Why doesn't he like me?" Marie managed to choke out pathetically, sniffling as she squeezed her younger sister tighter. May nodded and rubbed her sobbing sister's back, trying her best to comfort her. Both of them knew that they had pretty much broken every rule in the Kanker book and that, if Lee were here, she would probably laugh at them. But they did not care at the moment; their minds were too flooded with the waves of shame and sadness pelting their every thought to even consider what Lee would do. Minutes passed and, after a while, they stopped crying and let each other go, looking at each other like strangers as they sat back down at the kitchen table.

"Don't worry Marie," May said, wiping off the remainder of her tears as she sniffled "I am sure that if you tell Lee what happened, she'll understand and we'll think of a new way to get the Ed's." Marie scoffed and turned away to rid her face of the shame she had brought upon herself.

"Yeah right, she'll beat the shit out of me first and then she'll think of a new way." She crossed her arms and kept her head low. May wanted to contradict her, but Marie was right on the money. Lee was already mad enough at Marie for keeping the truth from her, but if she went and confessed now, Lee would probably beat her worse than if she had told the truth last night. Despite leading a life opposite of any kind of virtue imaginable, Lee held honesty in high regard, especially when it came to her sisters. May gulped when she remembered what had occurred a few months ago when she had lied about using her hair brush, she could still taste the cheap hair gel Lee used when she used her buck teeth as a replacement. Marie sighed and stood up, making her way to the back door.

"I'm gonna go out for a smoke." May nodded and watched her grab her lighter off the counter and pull her pack of cigarettes from her pajama pockets. Before she opened the door, she stopped and turned to face the still somewhat red eyed blonde. "Thanks, by the way."

May slowly smiled and nodded at her "You're welcome, Marie."

With that, Marie left the trailer and left May staring down at the dirty table. Everything had worked out alright in the end for once, but May still could not shake the feeling of sadness that rested deep in her chest. She had known the whole time that the Ed's had not liked them, it was obvious enough that even she realized it not long after her two sister's did, but ignorance is bliss and May had been in Heaven the past two years. But knowing that their love was unrequited was still a tough pill to swallow, even after having the truth screamed at her. These thoughts faded from her mind as she felt her stomach growl.

"Whoops, forgot to make some breakfast."

* * *

Rolf was perplexed.

He had been plowing the field for his turnips since four in the morning, but he unwittingly applied to much force to his rusty plow when he was pulling it across the ground, a trick he was forced to learn when Beatrice sprained an ankle six months ago, forcing her to the vet for a few days. Since then, he had been doing the deed himself and it had worked wonders on his physical condition, making him even stronger than before. Yet, here he stood, in front of a broken plow and with very little options available to him.

He had two options: One, he could use Victor to plow his fields again, yet he feared that the goat's horns would be damaged in the process, ruining what chance he had at winning the annual goat pageant in his homeland next week. Two, he could pull out the hoe and do it that way, yet it was in rough shape and would probably break as well. He cursed his sloth in acquiring a new one. The son of a Sheppard sighed, wiping the sweat from his forehead as the morning sun beat down on him. As he stared into the blue sky, still pondering his choices, he felt something touch his neck and immediately brought his hand down upon it, finding it to be a pesky mosquito. He smirked down at it as he wiped the pesky critter on his coveralls.

"Your efforts to deprive Rolf of his life liquid were noble indeed, but you have failed like the mighty Sea Cucumber." Rolf still shivered at the name of creature, even though it had long been vanquished. Or so he thought it had. No one truly knew when the beast was gone, but his family was always ready for it. Another shiver passed through him as he remembered his encounter with beast of a similar caliber in his home just yesterday and how long it took to wipe off their cursed lipstick. The Kanker's were his most fearsome foes to date, passing up even the Sea Cucumber in terms of ferocity. He felt ashamed that he fooled the Ed boys, not even they deserved to be sold out to those goblins. His fear had overtaken him when he laid eyes on them at his back door, overpowering any urge he had to make them leave.

"Rolf is ashamed of his cowardice, no longer will he drink milk from a weak as a starving chicken jug." He declared and laid eyes back on his broken plow, bringing his current problem back to the forefront of his mind. Walking over to the now useless plow, he picked it up and made his way to his shed. Despite his urge to want to finish his chores before nine, he felt that his current options were, as the three haired snake in the grass Ed boy would say, very sucky indeed. So he opted for the third, probably more obvious option, to just repair the plow. Papa would have thirty cows if he looked out and didn't see him working, so he hoped that it would not take longer than fifteen minutes to fix the tool. He was about to enter his shed, until he stopped and seen someone peaking over his fence.

"Hey there Rolf!" said Nazz, moving her blonde bangs out of her eyes. The sweaty farm boy smiled at the girl and walked over to her. He noticed that she too was sweaty and dressed in attire he had not seen before.

"Greetings go-go Nazz girl, Rolf is curious as to what brings you here this early, as the sun is just barely over the loving arms of the horizon." Nazz giggled and looked up at the tall boy. Rolf was pretty tall, but he still fell half a foot compared to Ed.

"Just going for my morning jog, trying to stay in shape and stuff, what are you doing?" Rolf motioned to the plow that lay in front of his shed.

"Rolf was just about to begin repairs on his plow; Rolf is too strong for his own good sometimes." He chuckled and looked back at Nazz who, for some reason, avoided his gaze this time. He was confused, but figured it was nothing and ignored it.

"Well, I hope you can fix it dude." She then gasped in realization "Oh man that reminds me! Do you want to hang out at the creek this evening?" She twiddled with her hair as she spoke "I mean, I wanted to go tomorrow, but I talked to Kev last night and he seemed to be okay with going today." She then fumbled over her words a bit "So, you know, it won't be just us. Kevin's going to be there to." She laughed awkwardly and Rolf tilted his head in confusion. He was about to turn down her offer, seeing as how he had more than a bucket load of chores to do today. However, when he looked back at Nazz, she looked like she was subtly pleading with him to go, making the scales of his mind lean towards the lazy part of himself, what little of that existed. His eyes moved to the broken plow and back to Nazz, making up his mind.

"Sure, Rolf will be there with chickens on his toes!" He then put a finger to his chin "Or was it pigs?" Nazz giggled again and smiled up at him, still kind of avoiding his eyes.

"Awesome! See you then!" She jogged off, leaving the son of a Sheppard alone again to contemplate how he was going to fix his plow. Something was up with Nazz, but he could not put his finger on it. He shrugged, maybe she had gas or something.

* * *

Her eyes followed her prey's every move. She found it weird that he was taking the local weirdo with him, but that was not the biggest problem at the moment. The bigger problem was staring right at her in his garage. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she observed her lost horde sitting perfectly fine and back in his possession, a snarl taking over her previous gritted teeth. Before she could do anything, the boy looked her way, causing her to duck away in the bushes. Even if she had been spotted, she was more than capable of beating him to a pulp if he tried anything. That is, if he was dumb enough to do anything in the first place.

Betrayal was the first thing that popped in her mind. Not that she trusted her sister that much anyway, but she at least gave her enough credit to speak her mind. She always was the one with the biggest mouth besides their littlest sister. She took a deep breath to try and calm herself, clearing her mind just enough to let her focus on more than just maiming her objects of rage. Her plan had been brought down to shambles and her precious stage had collapsed, all due to the effort of someone she thought she could trust. But the question was, why? Why would she do something so damning to her plan when she had agreed with it? Pulverizing the tar out of the jock was out of the question, despite how much she wanted to, mostly due to the presence of his parents and the fact that it would prove fruitless. It would sure make her feel better though. The only thing she could do was at the moment was speculate and plan her next move. To do that, she was going to have to rely on her hypothesis, and it was built on a shaky foundation to begin with. She turned around and leapt out of the bushes, hopping the fence when she made sure that the jock was no longer outside.

Before that though, she was going to make use of a few months worth of paychecks.

* * *

"Ed? Are you there?" Edd asked, knocking once more on his friend's basement window. He looked down at the dew covered grass and eliminated the option of getting on his knees to check if Ed was even up, he was comfortable waiting forever if it meant keeping his clothes dry. Despite his declaration of patience, he sighed and leaned against the outside of the house. He still could not believe that Eddy had rejected his plan. Well, that was a lie; he could indeed see why his cynical friend would at least doubt it. After all, his solution was relying purely on the kid's goodness of heart and, while he liked to believe in the best of everyone, it was still a flimsy plan and risked humiliating the trio even more. Yet, one had to test his hypothesis before tossing it out completely. If he was right, then he and his friends would live a life that they should have been living long ago. If he was wrong…well he just hoped he was right. Things could not get worse than they already were and Edd was antsy of even thinking of how things could degrade further. He smiled despite these thoughts and looked back down at his friend's window, still not seeing the curious Ed investigating the mysterious knock, like he usually did. After waiting for another minute or two, Edd sighed and began to walk.

"Well, no choice then, I suppose." He said, gulping as he made his way around the side of the house. He came upon the front yard and slowly looked at the door, terrified that Sarah could be lying in wait for anyone who dared to knock, especially if they had 'Ed' in their name. It had been a while since he had even used the front door of Ed's residence, mostly due to the aforementioned Sarah who usually denied them entrance, except on rare occasions. He walked on the path to the front door and made it to the steps, breathing in and out as he got closer. By the time his hand hovered over the wooden surface, he felt like his heart was going to explode. He squeaked and knocked once, immediately pulling his hand away and wincing in anticipation. A few moments of silence and he tried again. Silence again.

"Strange, either everyone is still asleep or Sarah is gone at the moment." He said, still somewhat cautious about being proved wrong at anytime. Actually, if that was the case, it would fit right in with his plan. Just the thought of something going right again made him tingle inside, but he dared not to tempt lady luck, for she was a cruel mistress indeed. Checking his watch again, he found that it was eight forty-three and he was momentarily confused. It felt like it had taken a lot longer to get here than that. A loud bang on the other side of the door made him both lose his train of thought and nearly made him jump out of his skin. Had he awoken the wrath of the beast by stirring her from her deep sleep? Before he could think about it, the door swung open to reveal a panicked looking Ed. His body released his fear with a long sigh.

"Ed? Thank goodness, I thought that-" Interruptions seemed like they would be common for him today, as the scared out of his mind Ed boy grabbed him by the arm and tossed him inside the house, hastily looking around to make sure that his little sister was not around before shutting the door, locking it as quick as he could.

"Double D! Help! Clean! Bad!" He yelled and grabbed the confused brainiac from the floor, carrying him toward the kitchen like he was riding on lighting. Edd was still trying his best to wrap his head around what Ed was saying and where he was going at the same time. But before he could form an accurate guess, he was dumped on a black and white tiled floor, derailing his thoughts once again. After groaning in pain from the short fall, his eyes widened to point of popping out of his skull when he caught sight of the kitchen. It looked like something out of a horror novel to him, chairs were strewn across the floor, the table was split in two, and the oven and the countertop near it were stained black with soot. He nearly vomited at the sight, disgusted with the condition of the previously beautiful kitchen.

"Ed, what in Sam Hill happened in here?!" He yelled, getting to his feet and looking around desperately for a bag he could breathe into. Instead of an answer, he got a mop shoved in his face and a broom dropped on his head as Ed danced around with a hammer and some nails.

"You clean, Double D! Ed shall take care of the table!"

Despite his early protest, Edd started to help his poor friend bring the kitchen back to life from the comatose state that it was in. He swept, he mopped and he wiped the stove and countertops until nothing resembling a germ remained. After a few more minutes, the kitchen had been brought back to its previous state, somewhat. While the floor and the stove were cleaned, Ed's repair skills were less than professional, to say the least. Edd looked down at his watch and noticed that it was ten after nine, nearly an hour past his scheduled time to execute his plan with Sarah. However, he was just happy to help his friend with a problem that was easily solved without the risk of being pummeled.

"Now that that's over, what in the world happened in here Ed?" Ed looked away guiltily and pawed at the ground with his foot.

"Breakfast." He said simply. Edd raised an eyebrow, but did not try to dig any further. Knowing Ed, breakfast could either mean the textbook definition or an epic chronicle with Mr. Match and Commander Fire Hydrant.

"Okay then." Double D said, reaching into his back pocket for his notepad. Ed watched his friend and, as if he was on a timer, he began to bounce up and down excitedly until Edd turned back to face him. As soon as he did, however, he was ensnared by Ed's long arms in a lung crushing hug.

"You were right Double D! Sarah loves me!" He yelled, ecstatic as he leapt up and down with Edd suffocating in his arms. A few more seconds of bouncing and humming to himself later, Ed began to hear a muffled sound coming from his chest. Was his tummy trying to talk to him again? Or could it possibly be an alien who infiltrated his chest so that it could posses his body, thus leading him to becoming the first of many as the race populated and took over the entire human race?! More crazy scenarios popped in his head, but he did not get to ponder them for long as Double D managed to worm his way out of Ed's herculean grip, gasping for air as he hit the ground.

"I…am? S-she…does?" Edd asked, struggling to form a single word as he regained the remainder of his breath. Ed nodded happily.

"Yeah! I was late coming home again but I forgot to get her a brush, then I went to Nazz and she gave me a pretty brush and then I came home to give it to her and when I did she looked so happy!" He said and took a big gulp of air afterwards "Then I went to bed, woke up and heard Jimmy and Sarah talking about how not useless I was!" Ed said, his smile growing wider as the sentence went on. He then sunk his head a bit "Then, breakfast."

Edd looked at his friend and tried to process everything he had said.

"W-well, that's great to hear Ed. But, if I may ask, where is Sarah?" He asked, looking around as if a tiger was about to pop out of the carpeting.

"She went to Jimmy's! I think." The teen said, scratching his shaved head. Edd nodded and pulled out his notepad, looking over his notes. If what Ed says is true, then this mission just got a whole lot easier but, if what his cynical side was telling was true, then Ed might be misinterpreting things and jumping to wild conclusions. He put these feelings aside, however. He trusted Ed and, while he was not the smartest egg in the processing factory, he was still his friend, and he was going to trust Ed's instincts. However dull they may be. He skimmed over another page and put his notepad away, looking up at the still smiling young adult.

"Well then, I was going to wait till Eddy agreed with me, but I guess we will need to do this alone." Ed tilted his head like a confused puppy.

"What are we going to do, Double D?" Edd felt a smile spread across his face. If this plan worked, then Ed would no longer be tortured by Sarah and he could live a life he only imagined in his best comic books. That is, if it worked. If his first course of action failed, then they would need to move onto plan B, which was still a work in progress. He turned around to see the kitchen phone, dangling toward the ground instead of hung up. Edd guess that Ed had panicked in his attempt to put out the fire and forgot to hang it up. Putting a hand on the boys back, he guided the confused fellow toward the phone.

"I want you to call Jimmy's house Ed and talk to Sarah." Ed's eyes bulged and he gulped.

"I-I don't know Double D, Sarah doesn't like it when I call her at Jimmy's." He said, starting to sweat as memories of times passed flashed in his mind. These terrible memories vanished as he felt Edd grab his hand and place it on the phone, guiding it toward his face.

"Trust me Ed, I feel like everything will work out." Ed did not like the idea of doing something that could possibly get his face smashed in, as his shaky hands and sweating face made clear. But seeing Edd smile and nod at him made him feel a lot better. Besides, this was Double D! He was the smartest guy on the planet and nobody came close to competing for that title. Ed smiled back and felt his courage soar to new heights as he put his finger on the first number. Then he felt kind of scared, but still brave when he hit the second one. He was a blubbering mess again by the time his finger hovered over the third number.

"I can't do it!" Ed yelled dramatically and almost dropped the phone until he felt Double D put his hand on his shoulder.

"Ed! Listen, I know you are scared but you can't give up without even trying! I am here Ed; I know you can do it!" He said, patting the scared boy on the back. Ed sniffled and took a few deep breaths, putting the phone back to his ear and reluctantly pushed the third number. Eventually, after what felt like days, Ed had dialed almost every digit except for the last one. All he could hear was his trembling breaths and his heart beating. It got closer and closer, but he never gained the strength to push the button. He felt a pat on the back from his best friend, causing his fear to wane until it was completely eradicated from his body.

With one final gulp of air, Ed hit the final number and the phone started to ring.


	7. Denial

**Didn't make it to ten thousand like I had hoped.**

 **But hey, I hope you enjoy!**

 ** _Chapter Seven:_**

 ** _Denial  
_**

 _"Couldn't walk away from something broken"  
_

A feeling of anticipation mixed with anxiety coursed through the pre-teen boy's body as he played out a plan in his head. This plan was one he had been forming for a few weeks now, waiting for the opportunity to execute it and, from the look of things, it looked like today was the day it all came to a head. Still, a meek part of him begged that he reconsider and take a step back to examine the consequences such a plan could bring. After all, the primary player in his plan had been his best friend for years now and this plan, if it failed, would more than likely destroy their friendship. If not, then it would certainly make things just a little awkward. She didn't see him that way did she? He couldn't just ask her, it would be really weird. Wouldn't it? He took a deep breath as he looked at his curly haired reflection, his conscience berating him while his mind egged him on. The only way to know is by doing, after all. Jimmy nodded at himself, smiling a bit. After all, how could she not like him after being around him so long?

"Did you fall in or something, silly?" An annoyed, yet playful voice called from his room. He jumped in fright and quickly went over his hair with a comb and made sure his collar was straight. The stage was set and all he needed to do was remember his lines. If it all went well, then maybe they could get ice cream later?

"I'm commin'!" Jimmy said, looking at himself once more in the mirror as he made his way out the door, shutting it behind him. His heart was still beating wildly as he made his way to his room, all manner of thoughts buzzing in his head. His moral fiber continued to berate him for wanting to execute such a risky plan, making the seed of doubt within him grow more and more, but the thoughts of what would happen if he succeeded drove him to weed out this seed and stamp out the growth. He shook his head to quell the civil war raging inside as he finally opened his bedroom door, immediately meeting the eyes of Sarah who had looked up from her magazine.

"What took you so long?" Jimmy sat opposite of her on his bed as he ran his fingers through his curly hair.

"I was just tending to my coiffure, it was a mess after our impromptu pillow fight." He giggled at the same time she did. He always loved it when she giggled.

"Yeah, it's been a while since I had that much fun." She said, putting away her magazine in her pink backpack. Despite his calm demeanor, Jimmy's mind was still in the middle of a body wide conflict. His tummy had butterflies, his knees quivered, his chest ached with premature guilt and his head hurt. He took a few deep breaths and wiped the building sweat from his forehead before the girl finished putting away her things. Sarah looked at her best friend in confusion, noticing how sweaty and uncomfortable he looked.

"You okay, Jimmy?" He sat up straight and nodded quickly, only adding to her suspicions.

"Yes, why do you ask?"

Jimmy blinked and subtly avoided her stare, his face turning slightly red. Every part of his being wanted to lean in and kiss her, just skip all the stupid talking and let his actions speak for themselves. But he couldn't. He barely had the courage to think about it, let alone move an inch. Every part of his being cursed his lack of grit from, not only his inaction now, but his missed opportunity after their tickle war right after their pillow fight. The walls around his well built plan were cracking under his lack of confidence, despite only recently being built, and he could feel his guilt bust down the main gates of his castle. He met his best friend's eyes and stared at them for a moment. They held confusion and, if his hunch was right, a tinge a fear. However, as soon as his wall was about to crumble, something happened. Deep within his being, a dark presence clawed its way to the top of his guilt, overpowering it slightly. He recognized it immediately, a flea he had picked up when he had wallowed in the filth of Eddy's insidious teachings. A very stubborn flea that he had let overpower him in the past, one that he had been trying to be rid of ever since his last deal with the Kankers. He felt it slowly taking him over, his muscles tightened in preparation for a move that seemed predetermined in his seemingly uncontrolled state of mind.

"Jimmy? Can you quit staring at me, it's creeping me out." Then, as if the darkness had completely vanished, Jimmy shook his head and regained his composure.

"Oh right, sorry." He said, running his hand through his hair. Awkward silence took hold of the previously cheerful atmosphere, making Jimmy's head hurt even more as he kept his eyes from looking directly at her, less those dark thoughts come again.

"What's with you Jimmy? You've been actin' weird ever since we got here." He kept his eyes fixated on the frilly white sheet of his bed, doing his best to think of some kind of excuse. "I'm your best friend you bozo, you can tell me anything. You know that right?" She scooted next to him and took his hands in her own, making him look her in the eyes for the first time that morning.

This was it, the perfect time. A month's worth of planning and self prep talks in the mirror were all leading to this moment. No leaping on her, no forcing her to do anything, nothing like that. It was going to go smoothly, like all those romance stories he read and movies he watched. He squeezed her hands tighter and leaned in toward her face, not paying attention to how she backed away a little.

"Sarah, I-" An awkward silence took hold as the boy looked for the appropriate words, scouring his young mind like a starving predator for prey. Just as his mind began to grasp the syllables, the two of them jumped when they heard the distant sound of his phone ringing. Awoken from her silence, Sarah quickly pulled her hands away and jumped off the bed.

"I...I'll get it." She backed up a few feet and then turned around, shutting the boys door and running quickly down the stairs. Jimmy sat there, his mouth still open and his hands trembling. Then he hung his head as he felt his eyes well up with tears, hugging his knees and quietly gasping for air.

He had failed.

* * *

"Alright, coast is clear." Eddy said for the tenth time that minute. His forehead was drenched in sweat, his knees were shaking and his hands trembled every time he even thought about looking outside. While this state had become more common in recent years, it had never been this bad. Hiding from Kevin was always easy, seeing as how that moron would always check the most obvious spots for him and his friends to hang out, making it fairly easy to find new spots. He just had to add grocery stores to the list now, of course. However, the Kankers were a whole new game in terms of difficulty. No matter where you hid, where you ran or where you even thought of doing one of those two options, they would be there. He barely had summoned the courage to call Ed a few minutes ago, fearing that the three had tapped into his phone lines or something, like in the movies. While it seemed highly unlikely they would be able to do that for a normal person, Eddy had enough battle scars and lipstick covered rags to know that those three could do anything they wanted, especially if him and his friends were involved.

If he had not witnessed what he had last night, he could have taken comfort in the thought of Kevin being their primary focus of revenge. After all, it was his bike and they knew the Ed's inside and out enough to know that they would not be dumb enough to infiltrate their grounds on their own. But, since this was reality and not one of Jimmy's old fairy tales, one of the Kankers had let them take it, which was probably part of some convoluted plan they had for boys. Not only that, but he was stuck in his room, sweating like a track runner after a one hundred mile sprint, with a tent flap that had the tensile strength of cardboard as a door. Since he had walked into his room last night to find his door bent and broken against his wall, he had to bust out an old tent flap from his brother's room, which his older sibling had bought just to tease him with the promise of a big camping trip that never came. No matter how many times he went into that room, he still got chills from just disturbing the dust particles that floated near the hidden doorway to his long gone sibling's room.

"Fuck this shit!" he said, standing up and marching toward his makeshift door. Sitting around and twiddling thumbs was something Double D was meant for, not him. Plus, he would rather have room to run if the Kankers came knocking. Not that he would run long anyway, they would do everything in their power to make sure he didn't get away as part of their revenge for yesterday. His hand made contact with the zipper and, slowly, inch by inch, he pulled it down. His heavy breathing and the low buzz of the metal teeth coming apart were all that he could hear at the moment as the morning light slowly entered his abode. After what felt like a week and a half, the cool morning breeze and the relaxing sunlight finally covered his entire room. If only he gave himself time to enjoy it while it lasted.

After he had finally unzipped his door, Eddy slowly peaked his head outside, whirling it around like a scared rabbit. To his pleasant surprise, he was still alive and not currently being pummeled by three, somewhat attractive psychopaths. He took a step on the wet grass and kept looking around for any sign of movement, keeping a close eye on the shadows just in case they were lying in wait. In spite of his paranoia, Eddy breathed a sigh of relief and sucked in the fresh air. Even if this was more than likely the Kankers favorite trap, letting their soon to be victims get complacent before jumping out and torturing them, he might as well enjoy it. He let a few minutes pass and, after he was comfortable enough breathing regularly, he slowly made his way to the side of his house.

"Alright, on to that shit I need to take care of." He said slowly, as if he was trying to remember what he was talking about.

* * *

Nazz felt great.

She had woken up early, had eaten a healthy breakfast and had finished her five mile jog for the morning. Exercise had been one of her favorite activities ever since she had shed all that weight from her early childhood, but she had caught herself being more lazy than usual and decided she needed to step up her game. All those aerobic tapes her mom let her borrow were getting old and yoga, while cool, was not really as exhausting as she liked. So she took some notes from her dad, who recommended that she take up jogging and, after she started, she couldn't get enough of it. She always made sure to make a pass near Rolf's house, just in case he happened to be outside so she could chat with him. It was weird, after what happened last year, she just found herself unable to talk with the farm boy without turning red, her stomach getting butterflies and all that crazy stuff. She even caught herself thinking about him more lately, making her interactions with him all the more awkward. In spite of this, she had done a decent job talking with him earlier, so maybe not all hope was lost.

"Alright, should I wear this or this?"

She knew it was ridiculous to choose her swimwear now when the outing was still hours away, but if she didn't do it now then it would nag her the rest of the morning. Since she had not shopped for any new ones yet, all she had at the moment were three one piece swimsuits and one two piece swimsuit, which she was still hesitant about wearing around the boys. She was kind of leaning toward the pink one piece, but she also liked the blue one. But she felt the light green one singing to her, making things even harder for her. Her eyes went to the white two piece again, tempting her more and more into wearing it. She sighed and sat on her bed, looking idly toward her dresser and found her eyes examining her collection of brushes. She smiled, a smile that soon turned into a giggle the more she thought about the shenanigans that the tall Ed boy got into last night. Ed was not smartest crayon in the cookie factory so there was no reason to get mad at him for an attempted break in. Plus, it was kind of convenient that he was there when she just finished talking to Kevin, not doing her any favors when she tried to keep what the jock told her a secret. Well, it was a nice secret, so there was nothing wrong with sharing those in her eyes.

"What the heck, I'll just wear the two piece." She picked it up and pressed it against her body as she looked in the mirror "Besides, I'll look totally awesome in it and I'm sure they won't mind." She giggled at the thought of Kevin's face when she showed up, though she was more concerned about how a certain farm boy would react. Her pondering would have to wait, however, as the phone in her room started ringing, scaring her half to death as she turned to face it. Taking a breath, she walked over and answered it on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey Nazz, how's it hangin'?" She smiled when she recognized Kevin's voice and sat down on her bed, looking at the swimsuit she put on the dresser.

"Radical, I'm just getting ready for our day at the creek. What are you up to?" she asked, hearing what sounded like a TV in the background.

"You're gonna laugh, but I'm actually hangin' out with Jonny." He whispered, sounding somewhat ashamed. Nazz's eyes widened and she pulled the phone back to look at it with a raised eyebrow. Well, that's something else she never thought she would hear in this dimension.

"Seriously? That's awesome Kev! What are you two doing?" Kevin was about to speak, as if he had already registered her response in his head, but paused and only let out a small croak.

"Wait, you don't care?" he asked, surprised. Nazz raised her eyebrow again.

"No." She said, dragging out the one syllable word. "Why would I? I think it's awesome you're letting him hang with you." Kevin was silent for a few seconds and almost spoke before being interrupted.

"Hey Kev! Ya got anymore of those fruity drinks! Plank hankerin' for another one!" Nazz heard the athletic boy sigh.

"Tell Plank he's gonna be hankerin for my fist if he doesn't keep it down!" he yelled, groaning afterward. "I swear, I'm tryin' to be friendly to the dor- I mean, guy, but he's really fuckin' annoying." Nazz giggled and got up to look over the two piece bathing suit, glancing up at the mirror and smiled at her reflection.

"Just be patient with him Kev, I'm sure you two will be like peas in a pod within the hour." Kevin scoffed on the other end, chuckling a bit afterwards.

"Yeah, well one of those peas might be strangled by the time that happens." He chuckled at his own joke and Nazz laughed with him. While she was certainly glad that he was making an effort, she was still shocked that Kevin was hanging out with Jonny willingly. She had been around Kevin long enough to know he believed in some juvenile form of social hierarchy, and kids like Jonny would be deemed a peasant. Or in his terms: a dork.

"Seriously though Kev, I am really happy you're doing this." She said, sitting back down on the bed "Maybe you can hang out with the Ed's? They did help you get your bike back after all." Kevin made a sound that seemed like a mix between a scoff and laugh.

"Your kidding, right?" he said, laughing a little afterward. Nazz kept silent through his laughter and this caused his chuckling to die down until it turned into a sigh. "Look Nazz, I know I jumped the gun yesterday but that was strictly business. I'm going to hate saying it again, but I'm fucking ecstatic that they got my bike back for me, but that doesn't mean we're going to be best buddies." Nazz sighed and laid down as Kevin went silent, seemingly trying to think of what else to say.

"I don't mess with em because I enjoy it." Utter silence met this sentence, causing him to groan in defeat "Fine, not just because I enjoy it. Every time I've kicked their asses they had it comin', you know that." Nazz closed her eyes and sighed herself.

"I know they have it coming sometimes, but we can't hold grudges forever dude. Remember what you told me last night?" Kevin sighed deeply and gritted his teeth a bit.

"You don't have to remind me." Before Nazz could tell him to reenact it, as much as she knew he would hate to, Jonny yelled again.

"Kev! Plank's gettin' rowdy!" Nazz heard Kevin groan, which made her laugh.

"Well, I guess I better let you go. Sounds like you got a friend to make."

"Don't push it, babe." He said before hanging up, leaving Nazz with a smile on her face. While she wasn't cynical enough to fully believe it, something told her deep down that this was a ruse the sports loving boy was cooking up to impress her. Well, if it was, then it was working.

* * *

Creeped out.

Those were two words Sarah never thought would be used in conjunction with her best friend in the whole world. A complex wave of emotions were smacking her around like a small boat in a typhoon, and she hated it. She had no idea what to think of the curly haired boy right now, she was mad, confused and sad when she thought of him, all at the same time. Most of all however, she was mad at herself for not noticing the signs sooner. Maybe she was assuming, but it looked an awful lot like Jimmy was about to confess his love for her or something. Gripping her hands, moving in close to her face, it was like something out those romance movies he likes to watch. Then again, he only started watching them a month or two ago. Maybe he was...no, he would never do that.

Emotions were always annoying to her, unless they happened to be anger or smug satisfaction. Those were the two she had grown accustomed with over the years, both of them mostly occurring in tandem whenever her idiotic brother was around. But right now, nothing made sense to her. She hated herself for even coming up with this thought but right now, she would be more than happy to see him at the moment.

After everything seemed to have returned to normal speed for her, Sarah continued her journey down the steps, the phone's continuous cries for attention acting as a beacon for escape. By the time it had rung six times, she finally made it down and picked it up, hoping and praying to the heavens that it was her mother.

"Hello?"

"Sarah?" A familiar goofy voice answered her back, surprising her. Speak of the idiot and he trips right into the room.

"Ed? I thought mom was calling." She said, not letting her disappointment go unnoticed by the Ed boy. She heard Ed swallow hard on the other end, seemingly trying to calm his nerves.

"I'm s-sorry baby sister. I just got worried and wanted to see if you were okay." He said, a little more organized than usual, but genuine none the less. She was shocked at this, but strangely she felt comforted by it.

"Yeah, thanks...look, can you come pick me up." Ed let out a small gasp and got closer to the speaker.

"Why? Did something happen at Jimmy's? Did he hurt you?" Sarah backed away from the phone a little at the sheer volume of his voice and looked up the stairs, making sure that the fragile boy wasn't listening in.

"No, he didn't hurt me but...I think something is wrong with him. Can you please come pick me up?" She heard the sigh in an over the top manner and he backed away from the speaker.

"Say no more baby sister, I'll be there with bells on my toes!" She usually would have been annoyed at his stupid, over the top quotes, but she found a smile trying to force its way onto her face. Just as she was about to hang up, she heard him say something else, making her put the phone back up to her ear.

"What did you say?" She heard the other line go silent for a moment before he spoke again.

"I love you, Sarah." These words momentarily caused her to black out and forget everything that had happened within the past five minutes. That phrase. She had heard Jimmy say it numerous times over the years but, until very recently, she always thought he meant it in a platonic way. However, it had been ages since she heard it from her own brother. Her throat felt dry and that small part of her mind which always annoyed her to no end with guilt had successfully reached the peak of her mind, pretty much forcing her to say five words that might as well had been in a foreign language from how natural they sounded.

"I love you too, Ed."

* * *

If the awkwardness meter had manifested into a physical form, it would have exploded before entering anywhere near the stratosphere of Ed's kitchen. Sarah was idly playing around with the bowl of Chunky Puffs Ed already had prepared when she came in, moving the individually colored pieces around with her spoon. Meanwhile, Ed was moving around the kitchen, preparing what looked to be hot chocolate. Good thing she had basically whipped him into learning how to make it, since it was her favorite drink. She noticed that the table looked a little uneven, but she didn't really feel like removing the table cover for a better look, but Ed's constant glances toward it tempted her just a little bit. Speaking of her usually idiotic brother, he was moving around without much fault, as opposed to his usual clumsy demeanor.

"Here you go Sarah." Ed said, setting a cup of the thick brown liquid in front of her. An almost microscopic smile appeared on her face when she noticed a few small marshmallows forming a smiley face, though a part of her wanted to cringe. "Just the way you like it!" he said with way more energy than usual.

"Thanks, Ed." She said solemnly, picking it up and taking a small sip. All she could think about was Jimmy and the look on his face when she left. Was he actually in love with her. or was she just assuming that? Well, his actions pretty much spoke for themselves on that front and she knew she wasn't thick enough to ignore such obvious hints. However she still felt a pit in her chest that told her she was wrong, that Jimmy was just going to confess what he thought of her as a friend. But, that part of her also told her to hug Ed all the time, so its opinion was about as valid as ever. She looked up from her hot drink to see Ed staring at her, but he looked away as soon as she met his stare. Her neutral expression turned into a frown. Great, being stared at by people was going to a norm for today, was it? As she contemplated maybe punching him in the face for staring at her, he perked up and leaned to the left, seemingly trying to look past her.

"So, Sarah, what do you think of the new brush I got for you?" He said slowly, almost robotic in his tone.

Her eyes widened and she looked back down at her drink. What did she think of it? She remembered talking with...a certain someone about it this morning, recalling the compliments she had gotten from that person and how nice its bristles had felt against her scalp. It had a very pretty design and it had done an amazing job at taming her previously disastrous looking mane. Yet, if she said any of this, she felt like she would release her reins. The reins that had felt so good to hold. If she let them go, who knows what Ed would do. He might even...

"Yeah, it's great." She said slowly, almost as if a part of her life was being taken away with each syllable. She had not even meant to say it, she was planning on letting those words die on her tongue and just keep quiet, but something made her say it. Whatever it had been, she was doing her best to locate it and destroy it. He reacted exactly as she thought he would when those reins showed the least bit of lenience, he smiled. He smiled wider than he had in years at that small, meaningless compliment.

"Ed gets only the best for his _big_ sister!" He said, throwing in a wink and a chuckle. Her grip on the reins was loosening more and more as she took in those words and everything that had occurred up to that point. Tradition was defined as it was because it always held true, and Ed's tradition was ruining everything in her life for her. He was stupid, he was clumsy, he was smelly, he was everything she despised and was annoyed by. Yet, here he was now. He had called to check up on her, he had been there to save her from something she was had been momentarily too stupid to see previously, and he was here to comfort her in spite of all of her abuse. Something else was dancing on her tongue at the moment, a question that had been begging to be asked every time he had done something nice for her.

"Why?" It came out like a whisper, almost breathless. Ed's ears perked up and he leaned in.

"What was that, Sarah?" He asked, genuine concern clear in his voice and eyes.

She felt weak. Everything was going wrong! Her best friend more than likely has feelings for her, her idiotic brother was doing something nice for her and trying to guilt trip her, and the worst part is that she was falling for his game. She slowly raised her head and met her brother's emotion filled eyes.

"Why are you always so nice to me?" Ed gave her a big smile and hugged himself tightly.

"Because you are my sister and your big brother loves you!" She lowered her head and stared down at the now light brown chocolate drink, the marshmallows long since turned into mush, making the their previous form of a smiley face look more like a demented frown. Almost symbolic, seeing as how Sarah felt anger boiling inside her at her stupid brother's words. Yesterday must have been her last day in the land of reality, because things were changing to a ridiculous extent in whatever Hell she had woken up in today. Every crevice of her brain was aching for an explanation. Maybe she had finally broken his small mind and he had gone insane? Or, more than likely, he was doing this to get on her nerves. The dark side of her whispered this in her ear over and over, telling her to take the reins back from him and show him who's boss. She felt her grip on the cup get tighter as dark thoughts of her throwing the burning liquid in his face took over. That would teach him a lesson for daring to play with her emotions like this.

Ed continued to smile at her, unaware of what she was planning on doing. He must have noticed the look in her eye though, as he tilted his head quizzically in response.

"Sarah? Are you okay?"

Just as she was about to do it, something stopped her. It was a familiar force in her mind, as it had fought with her all of her adolescent life. It was that little tugging feeling that always annoyed her whenever she thought of doing something like this to him. The almighty force of guilt was a constant, annoying threat to her control of her brother, always nay saying every thought she conjured up from the sick bowels of her imagination. She always had success at ignoring it every time it reared itself, but ever since yesterday, the day Ed actually came through for her, its annoyance factor had more than tripled, keeping her up later than usual last night as she planned her and Jimmy's play day. The reins, the ones she had held without contest all her life, were quickly slipping out of her grasp. Ed sat patiently through the tense silence, taking a few sips of his hot cocoa every now and then. Suddenly, as soon as his cup hit the uneven surface after his last sip, Sarah slammed her fist into the table, causing him to jump in fright.

"This is bullshit!" She yelled, throwing her cup against the wall, shattering it on impact and spraying the liquid everywhere. She leapt out of her chair and stomped towards the confused oaf, pointing at him as she drew closer. "I know what you're doing, you're trying to make me look like the bad guy, right?!" She then heightened her voice and rubbed her balled up hands under her eyes "I'm fathead Ed, and I've never done anything wrong, but my fucking sister is such a bitch for no reason! Boo hoo!"

Ed cringed each time she swore and backed away from her, his face full of terror and confusion.

"But...but...I-I" Sarah got right in his face, jumping on his chest and using his jacket collar as leverage. Even though he was terrified, Ed could not mistake that he saw tears forming in his little sister's eyes.

"You think you're so fucking innocent? You're an idiot! You don't fucking love me, you wish I was dead in the fucking dirt don't you?!" She pushed him onto the ground, jumping off his chest and standing over his fallen, heartbroken form. Tears had long since been falling from Ed's face as he looked up at his younger sister, her chest heaving with every breath and her face burning red with fury.

"Go on! Say it!" She yelled, ignoring the tears that leaked off her face. This was how things were meant to be. Ed beneath her, writhing like a dying worm in the sunlight and her standing over him as the kid with the magnifying glass. She would pull it away once in a while, letting him get comfy for a day or two and then she would be right back at it. Taking control had always felt good to her and nothing was going to change that, not him buying her a stupid brush, not him trying to comfort her after a stressful situation, nothing would compare to this raw feeling of power.

If this was true, then why was she still crying?

Despite her demands, Ed remained silent as he stared up at her. She would have to break one of his stupid models later if she wanted him to forget he saw her like this. She hadn't cried in years and she was going to make sure no one knew about it besides her and the idiot she was going to blackmail to keep his trap shut about it. Suddenly, the miserable boy's face did something that would have earned him a punch in the face for daring to do again around her, he smiled. Before she could do anything about it, she found herself engulfed in his long arms as he pulled her into one of his infamous hugs.

"I love you Sarah." He said through his sobs, holding onto her for dear life as she struggled to break free. Despite his best efforts, Ed was unable to hold on for long, as the furious girl used her feet to press against his face, prying her free of his usually superhuman grip. Her kick sent him flying back into the nearby wall, bumping his head against the hard surface, dazing him for a moment as his sister stood a mere five feet away, still breathing rapidly. Her mind was a mess, thousands of thoughts were swarming her mind and quite a few involved physical pain for the idiot in front of her. However, despite how good and in control this usually made her feel, she could not stop crying. For every bad thought that appeared, it was either replaced with thoughts of Ed being kind to her or it was tainted with guilt, making her even more furious with not only him, but herself. It was ridiculous, she thought. What happened to reveling in being the biggest bitch around?

With no dignity left and the iron clad grip of guilt holding her back from completely pulverizing Ed, she simply turned with a loud growl and made her way to the kitchen entrance, turning around only once to tell Ed something he had memorized right down the dot.

"Clean up that mess before I tell mom." said the deeply confused and still crying girl before sprinting upstairs to her room without another word, slamming her door shut behind her. Ed was left in a state that he naively thought would never happen again after yesterday. He was on the floor, crying his eyes out and deeply conflicted about his sister. She told him that she had loved him over the phone, something he had been longing to hear all his life and it ended the same way as any other day with her. A inkling of himself posed a question that kicked his already down confidence in the gut. Had Double D been...wrong? No, he couldn't have. Double D was the smartest cookie in the bathtub, there is no way he would be wrong.

Despite his thoughts to the contrary, doubt still managed to work its way into his mind, crowding the couch space of his head with sadness, shock and even more sadness.

"Ed!" Through tear filled eyes, the broken teen looked up to see the subject of his inner debate standing in the kitchen entrance. His vision was blurry, but he could still make out his friend's shocked expression as he sprinted over to him. As soon as the smart teen kneeled down to comfort him, Ed embraced his best friend and bawled into his shoulder, which Edd immediately returned and patted the poor boy on the back.

"I'm so sorry Ed, this is all my fault..."

* * *

Marie's eyes continued to scan the trailer park as she took a deep puff on her cigarette, blowing the smoke out of her nostrils afterwards. She didn't know why she was doing it, but it just felt natural to survey the place for any idiots dumb enough to sneak around. It always had been one of her favorite things to do when she was younger. If someone showed up nowadays, which was rare, it was was those Urban Ranger dweebs or, even rarer, it was that little dandy kid with the curls asking them to do something to the Eds. No matter who it was, she relished the feeling of seeing the look on their dumb faces when she found them. She puffed again and furrowed her eyebrows as a certain memory reared its ugly head once again. Well, she used to, until she caught the dork disease, that is.

Marie looked down at her watch in a fit of boredom. Almost nine, the time when they had snuck into that shovel chinned roider's garage to take his stupid bike just yesterday. Yesterday. When she thought about it, it seemed like a whole new world to her. Yesterday she wasn't plagued with stupid thoughts about Double D, she wasn't suddenly feeling bad about her actions and, most important of all, she wasn't almost out of cigarettes from all the stress she had to smoke away. She shrugged and pocketed the almost empty pack of smokes. If Lee didn't kill her when she got back then she would pester her to buy some packs later. Besides, worrying about what had happened yesterday was so two hours ago.

After she stomped out her fifth cigarette that hour, she turned to head back inside. Just as her hand touched the handle, she heard a loud roar in the distance, making her whirl around.

"What the hell?" She asked out loud, her eyes scanning for the source. Her mind jumped to several conclusions, but the most prevalent one was also the most logical. A car? She didn't know what a car would be doing here though, nobody has driven around these parts since they were kids. Suddenly, an inkling of fear itched her mind. Could that loser jock have told his parents about them stealing his trashy bike? No, not even he would do something as stupid as that. Besides, they would never believe him anyway if he tried. Before she could ponder anymore, an unfamiliar car rounded the bend of the dirt road that led into the forest.

"Who in the...?" she asked, squinting to try and peek at the driver. This proved fruitless, as the tinted windows hid the persons face very well. The vehicle got closer until it went around to the front of the trailer. She quickly went inside and ran through the kitchen to the living room, seeing May squinting through the blinds

"Who the heck is that, Marie?" She asked, fear in her voice as she backed away from the blinds. Marie took the blonde's place and seen the car come to a stop in front of the house. A cloud of dust had followed the car's travel down the dirt road. This, combined the glare of the morning sun on the dew tinted window, made it almost impossible to see anything.

"I dunno, but I'm going to find out." She replied, marching toward the door with her fist balled. The door didn't even have time to slam against the side of the house before the azure haired girl froze, her eyes gazing into the dark abyss of the driver's sunglasses. A familiar redhead was leaning against the driver side of the black vehicle, taking a long draw on a cigarette before she flicked it away after she noticed her two gawking sisters.

"Damn, there goes the surprise." She said sarcastically, removing the sunglasses to let her hair cover her eyes once again.

"Lee, what the hell is this?" Marie asked, finally snapping out of her shocked state. Lee smirked and smacked the hood.

"This is what seven months of saving on cigarette money looks like, Marie." She said, letting her finger skim over the hot surface of her new pride and joy as she strutted toward the porch. The middle child's mouth remained agape as she looked over every inch of the car, a few specks of drool covering her lips. The baby of the trio was in a similar state, but she recovered much quicker and bolted past her daydreaming sister.

"This is so awesome!" May said, letting her hands polish the slick, dark surface. "Thank you so much, Lee!" The older sister kept her smirk and polished her knuckle on her shirt.

"Just a way of saying sorry to my _other_ baby sister." She said, turning her head to the still awestruck Marie. This made the aforementioned teen snap out of her hypnotic state and fix the red head with a glare.

"Baby? Who the hell are you calling a baby?" Lee laughed and walked over to Marie, smacking her in the back and almost knocked the aforementioned "baby" off her feet. Retaliation was the first thing that came to her mind, but Marie wrangled these feelings before they could fester.

"Lighten up will ya," she said in a jovial tone with another smack on the back "Get in, we're going joy riding." May lifted her eyes from her reflection in the hood and smiled wider than she had in years. However, it appeared her joy was not shared with her blue haired sibling, who still had a look of suspicion plastered all over her face. Lee walked over to the driver side and swung the door open, seemingly ignoring the hole Marie was glaring into her head.

"Hey, who said you get to drive!" the blue haired sister said, awakening from her anger induced silence. The target of her anger smirked and slammed the car door shut after she jumped in.

"I did when I bought it, so shut up and get in." She indulged in a chuckle, tapping on the gas to let the engine roar. If this were someone else, they would at least have the suspicion that Lee was up to something. Marie didn't even need to think about it for a second. Whatever her eldest sister was plotting, it was obvious it was not going to turn out well for her. After all, Lee never lets anything she deems suspicious go unchecked, sister or not. Guess that's one thing they still had in common after this whole debacle.

"Outta my way!" Marie said, pushing her blonde sister aside and jumping into the shotgun seat. May recovered quickly, but was too slow to retaliate as her snickering sister had already locked the door. The weary blonde sighed and got in the back, immediately taking a liking to the leather interior. Lee put the car in reverse and felt everything in her body begging her to act on a certain thought. It was not a particularity nice thought, some would even call it cruel, but it was one she had been dancing in her mind ever since she had discovered the fruit of her suspicions still very much intact. Taking a small breath, she tucked these thoughts away. Hopefully, if things went according to her still in progress plan, then she would not have to resort to _that_.

As she finally pushed the gas pedal down, all she could think about was how she had just jinxed the whole thing.


End file.
